Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Pop Art

Like his fellow Pop painters Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos (born 1935) derives the motifs for his work from mass media and advertising. In bold and immediately recognizable canvases, he unites consumer goods with idealized pin-up girls modeled after magazine images dating from the 1950s and 1960s. Ramos immortalizes these models' lascivious poses by entwining them with the featured products in what he calls "commercial pin-ups." This monograph illustrates and discusses many of these works, but also provides insight into the artist's multifaceted oeuvre by presenting more than 100 works, from his first portraits of people, comic heroes and heroines, and his prominent pin-up girls, to his latest works from the Galatea series. Celebrating the artist's 75th birthday, this catalogue accompanies a major European retrospective, the first to unite Ramos' drawings, paintings and sculptures.