The Pause that Refreshes
by Mel Ramos
Material
Painted resin; 53 x 53 x 15 cm
Dating
2008
About the artwork
edition 5/8
He created pictures in which he draped pin-up girls in lascivious poses on painted merchandise items, parodying the trivial glamour gestures of an advertising machine that tries to stimulate the desire to buy with sexual stimuli. Mel Ramos is regarded as a member of the original group of American Pop Art artists together with Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg and others, whereby his depictions of women with their openly displayed eroticism constitute a very special area of this art movement.
About the artist
Like many other Pop Art artists, Ramos had intended to become a graphic designer in advertising before he decided to study art. Between 1954 and 1958 he studied at the Sacramento City College, the San José State College and the Sacramento State College. From 1958 he taught at various institutions including the Sacramento State College, the Arizona State University and the California State University.
A student of Wayne Thiebaud, Mel Ramos was a follower of the ‘Bay Figurative School’, a movement, which distanced itself from abstract Expressionism – the predominant genre in the United States during the 1950s. From 1961 onwards, Ramos started to use the imagery of American comics as a source of inspiration. But besides the comic book characters, naked female bodies dominate his oeuvre. His creations satisfy male fantasies, but at the same time his flawless sexual objects appear artificial and absurd. He created images with lascivious pin-up girls placed on commodities in order to mimic the advertising industry’s methods to capitalize on the ‘sex sells’-slogan. Mel Ramos belongs to the original group of American Pop Art artists together with Warhol, Lichtenstein and Rauschenberg, but his explicit display of eroticism adds a whole new facet to Pop Art.