Mel Ramos

Mel Ramos is an American pop art artist and known for female nudes that he paints in connection with branded products. By aggravated coupling women with well-known products, Ramos raises the question of the role of the female body in the materialism of modern culture. Like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Ramos' graphic style was strongly influenced by the visual language of the comic books, whose characters and pictures he painted as a teenager. The file is also reminiscent of the style of pin-up images. Born on the 24th July 1935 in the Californian capital Sacramento, Ramos studied art at Sacramento State College under the guidance of his mentor Wayne Thiebaud and earned a master's degree there. The work of the painter and graphic artist is part of the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others. He lives and works in the Californian city of Oakland and in the municipality of Horta de Sant Joan in Spain.

At the beginning of the 1960s, even before his artistic success, Ramos worked as a teacher in the Bay Area for several years. His works were shown in 1963 alongside works by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol in a pop art exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). In 1965, he began his popular works by naked pin-up girls. In works such as Butterfinger (1995) and Lucky Lulu (1965), Ramo's young female bodies with chocolate bars, cigarettes and other branded items. His works stand for modern society and its handling of the female body and the comparison of beauty and consumption. His trademark is the reference to art history and classical mythology.

As artist’s scene, the US, in particular New York city, endures as a focal point that has played a significant role in developing modern and contemporary art in the twentieth century. The idea of New York as a new multinational and highly powerful art hub emerged in the post war era, and the city succeeded in asserting its dominance over Paris, which used to be regarded as the most powerful international art center. The authority of the political and economic institutions of the United States in the modern era has provided the country with a powerful influence on the visual culture of the world. Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Neo-Expressionism, Graffiti and Street Art, are essential art movements that blossomed in the US. These very movements also reverberated into a multitude of variations, such as diverse forms of Abstract Expressionism, as well as East and West Coast adaptations of Pop Art, among others. Some internationally acclaimed U.S artists of the contemporary period age include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

Mel Ramos is represented by several galleries around the world, including countries like Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. Galleries include Galerie Ernst Hilger in Vienna, Gallery 2CforArt in Salzburg, and Galleria d'Arte Maggiore G.A.M. in Bologna.

Ramo's works have been exhibited internationally and have been shown in numerous museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He received teaching assignments from California State University, Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin.

EXHIBITIONS:

2013 - 2014 Beauty and the Beast, Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig, Germany

2013 Pop Art Accrochage, Fluegel-Roncak Gallery, Nuremberg, Germany

          Pinups & Portraits - IKON Ltd, Santa Monica, United States of America

2012 Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Superheroes, Nudes, and Other Pop Delights, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, USA (solo)

          Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch, Germany

2011 Gallery Ernst Hilger Vienna, Austria

2010 50 years of Pop Art, Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (solo)

2009 Marcel Strouk, Gallery Rive Gauche, Paris, France (solo)

2008 True Romance, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany

          Posing, Kunsthalle Dermstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

2007 Prime Time - Idols and Icons, Vonderbank Artgalleries, Berlin, Germany

Shining Spirit: Westheimer Family Collection, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, USA

2006 Life as a Legend - Marilyn Monroe, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, USA

2005 Photorealism, Then and Now, Elaine Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, USA

          Girls on film, Zwirner & Wirth, New York, USA

2004 Summer Jam, Gallery Burkhard Eikelmann, Dusseldorf, Germany

2003 Gallery Terminus, Munich, Germany

          Riva Yares Gallery, Phoenix, United States of America

          Bemarducci-Meisel, New York, United States of America

2002 Fischerplatz Gallery, Ulm, Germany

          Gallery Patrice Trigano, Paris, France

2001 Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, United States of America

          Galeria Alvarez, Porto, Portugal

          Palazzo dei Sette, Municipality of Orvieto, Italy

          Gallery Hilger, Vienna, Austria

          Galleria d'Arte Maggiore, Bologna, Italy

2000 Expo 2000, Gallery Burkhard Eikelmann, Cologne, Germany

          Gallery Vonderbank, Frankfurt, Germany

          Kunsthaus, Cologne, Germany

          Gallery Terminus, Munich, Germany

          Gallery Levy, Hamburg, Germany

          Kunstforum Franconian Lakeland, Gunzenhausen, Germany

1999 Gallery Burkhard Eikelmann, Essen, Germany

          Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

          Museum of Modern Art, Passau, Germany

          Kunsthaus Hannover, Hanover, Germany

          Louis Meisel Gallery, New York, United States of America

          Galleria Civica di Modena, Modena, Italy

1998 Galerie Eikelmann & Auktionhaus Karbsten, Dusseldorf, Germany

          Galeria Nova, Bad Homburg, Germany

1997 Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, United States of America

          Mel Ramos - Oleos, Acuareias, Dibujos, Galeria Levy Madrid, Madrid, Spain

1996 Attention to detail (realism in all forms), Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, United States of America

1991 Mel Ramos - The Heroine of 1962-64, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, United States of America

1987 The Artists of California: A Group Portrait in Mixed Media, The Oakland Museum, Oakland, USA

1986 Mel Ramos Early Paintings, Gallery Tanja Grunert Cologne, Germany

1984 Automobile und Kultur, Das Museum für Cotemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA

1980 Mel Ramos: A Twenty Year Survey, The Rose Art Museum, Brandies University, Waltham, USA

1979 Selections from the Frederick Weisman Collection of California Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washinton, D.C.

1974 Pop Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

          David Stuart Gallery, New York, United States of America (solo)

1970 Pop Prints, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

1964 Bianchini Gallery, New York, United States of America

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:

Kunsthaus Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Franklin House Collection, San Francisco, CA

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, IN

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

New Gallery City of Aachen, Dusseldorf, Germany

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC