Mel Ramos | |
|---|---|
 Ramos in 2007 | |
| Born | Melvin John Ramos (1935-07-24)July 24, 1935 |
| Died | October 14, 2018(2018-10-14) (aged 83) |
| Education | Sacramento State College (MA)[1] |
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
| Movement | Pop art |
| Awards | National Endowment for the Arts – Visual Artist's Fellowship Grant, 1986[1] |
Melvin John Ramos (July 24, 1935 – October 14, 2018) was an Americanfigurative painter, specializing most often in paintings offemale nudes, whose work incorporates elements ofrealist andabstract art.[2]
Born inSacramento, California, to a first generation Portuguese-Azorean immigrant family, he gained his popularity as part of thepop art movement of the 1960s. Ramos is "best known for his paintings of superheroes and voluptuous female nudes emerging from cornstalks or Chiquita bananas, popping up from candy wrappers or lounging in martini glasses".[3] He was also a university art professor.
Ramos attendedSacramento Junior College andSan Jose State College. One of his earliest art teachers wasWayne Thiebaud, who is considered his mentor, and who remained his friend. Ramos received his B.A. and his M.A. fromSacramento State College, finishing his education in 1958.[1] From 1958 to 1966, Ramos taught art atElk Grove High School andMira Loma High School in Sacramento. After two brief college teaching assignments, he began a long career (1966–1997) atCalifornia State University, East Bay, inHayward, California, and then served asprofessor emeritus. He wasArtist in Residence atSyracuse University and theUniversity of Wisconsin.[1]
In 1955, Ramos married Leta (Helmers) Ramos, who was the model for many of his early nude paintings.[1]
Ramos received his first important recognition in the early 1960s; since 1959 he has participated in more than 150 solo and 120 group shows.[4]
Along withRoy Lichtenstein andAndy Warhol, he was one of the first artists to do paintings of images from comic books, and works of the three were exhibited together at theLos Angeles County Museum of Art in 1963.[1] Along withClaes Oldenburg,James Rosenquist,Tom Wesselmann and Wayne Thiebaud, Ramos produced art works that celebrated aspects of popular culture as represented in mass media. His paintings have been shown in major exhibitions of pop art in the U.S. and in Europe and reproduced in books, catalogs, and periodicals throughout the world.
In 1986 he received a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grant.[5]
In 2009, Ramos was part of the first Portuguese American bilingual art book and exhibit in California "Ashes to Life a Portuguese American Story in Art" with fellow artistsNathan Oliveira,John Mattos andJoão de Brito.
Ramos originally showed withLeo Castelli. ThenIvan Karp introduced Ramos' work to the art dealer Louis Meisel. He was represented by theLouis K. Meisel Gallery since 1971.[2] He has also been represented for many years by San Francisco's Modernism gallery, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Austria and Burkhard Eikelmann Gallery (Düsseldorf).[6]
A major exhibition of his work was held at theAlbertina in Vienna in 2011.[7][8]
A retrospective of over 50 years of his work opened at theCrocker Art Museum in his hometown of Sacramento on June 2, 2012.[1][3] This show is "the first major exhibition of his work in his hometown", and his first American retrospective in 35 years.[9]
His work can be found in the permanent collections of the New YorkMuseum of Modern Art, theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum, theWhitney Museum of American Art, theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art, theNorton Simon Museum, and theHirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.[2]
According to theArtnet Price Database, Ramos’s £1.07 million [$1.69 million] auction record was set atSotheby's London in 2012.[2]
Ramos died of heart failure on October 14, 2018, at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.[10]
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