Mel Ramos

In 1963 Mel Ramos, one of the first artists to embrace Pop Art, developed a preference for a tantalizing, seductive visual language. In typical Pop Art colors, beauty queens and nude Hollywood stars are combined with commodities to populate his paintings. In accordance with advertising aesthetics, he placed female bodies in erotic, occasionally vulgar poses on top of consumer goods, thus taking his theme from advertising’s enduring slogan, “sex sells.” This catalogue is an homage to Mel Ramos, in celebration of his eightieth birthday.