Melvin John Ramos (July 24, 1935 – October 14, 2018) was an American
figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of
female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of
realist and
abstract art
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...
.
Born in
Sacramento, California
Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...
, to a first generation
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
-Azorean immigrant family, he gained his popularity as part of the
pop 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".
He was also a university art professor.
Biography
Ramos attended
Sacramento Junior College
Sacramento City College (SCC) is a public community college in Sacramento, California. SCC is part of the Los Rios Community College District and had an enrollment of 25,307 in 2009. It is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community a ...
and
San Jose State College
San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public research university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State Universit ...
. One of his earliest art teachers was
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud ( ; born Morton Wayne Thiebaud; November 15, 1920 – December 25, 2021) was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, cakes, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot d ...
, who is considered his mentor, and who remained his friend. Ramos received his B.A. and his M.A. from
Sacramento State College
California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California, United States. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is part of the California State Universit ...
, finishing his education in 1958.
[ From 1958 to 1966, Ramos taught art at Elk Grove High School and ]Mira Loma High School
Mira Loma High School is a public high school located in Arden-Arcade, California, Arden-Arcade, California, United States. It is located south of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80, and east of Watt Avenue. It is a part of the San Juan U ...
in Sacramento. After two brief college teaching assignments, he began a long career (1966–1997) at California State University, East Bay
California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post-baccala ...
, in Hayward, California
Hayward is a city located in Alameda County, California, United States, in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 162,954 as of 2020, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area, and the third largest in ...
, and then served as professor emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus".
...
. He was Artist in Residence
Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...
at Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
and the University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
.[
]
Marriage
In 1955, Ramos married Leta (Helmers) Ramos, who was the model for many of his early nude paintings.[
]
Art career
Ramos received his first important recognition in the early 1960s; since 1959 he has participated in more than 150 solo and 120 group shows.
Along with Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...
and Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, 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 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
in 1963. Along with Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
, James Rosenquist
James Albert Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advert ...
, Tom Wesselmann
Thomas K. Wesselmann (February 23, 1931 – December 17, 2004) was an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.
Early years
Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati.
From 1949 to 1951 he atten ...
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.
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 artists Nathan Oliveira
Nathan Oliveira (December 19, 1928 – November 13, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to immigrant Portuguese parents. Since the late 1950s, Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred s ...
, John Mattos and João de Brito
João de Brito (born 1958) is a Portuguese-American artist who has lived in Northern California since 1978, yet he travels extensively throughout California, the U.S. and Europe to paint in oils en plein air and from memory. From age 6, he has obs ...
.
Ramos originally showed with Leo Castelli
Leo Castelli ( Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which Castelli s ...
. Then Ivan Karp
Ivan C. Karp (June 4, 1926 – June 28, 2012) was an American art dealer, gallerist and author instrumental in the emergence of pop art and the development of Manhattan's SoHo gallery district in the 1960s.
Ivan Karp was born in the Bronx and gr ...
introduced Ramos' work to the art dealer Louis Meisel. He was represented by the Louis K. Meisel Gallery since 1971. He has also been represented for many years by San Francisco's Modernism gallery, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Austria and Burkhard Eikelmann Gallery (Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
).
A major exhibition of his work was held at the Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...
in Vienna in 2011.
A retrospective of over 50 years of his work opened at the Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...
in his hometown of Sacramento on June 2, 2012. This show is "the first major exhibition of his work in his hometown", and his first American retrospective in 35 years.
His work can be found in the permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...
, the Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
, the Norton Simon Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds.
Overview
The Norton Simon collections ...
, and the Hirshhorn Museum
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed ...
in Washington, D.C.
According to the Artnet
Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...
Price Database, Ramos’s £1.07 million 1.69 millionauction record was set at Sotheby's
Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
London in 2012.
Death
Ramos died of heart failure on October 14, 2018, at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.
References
External links
*
Representation in Europe and publisher of Prints: Galerie Ernst Hilger
"Mel Ramos Art"
(One of the largest collections of Mel Ramos artworks)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramos, Mel
1935 births
2018 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
American pop artists
Artists from Sacramento, California
California State University, East Bay faculty
20th-century American printmakers
American people of Portuguese descent
American people of Azorean descent
20th-century American male artists
San Jose State University alumni