This postcard is a rare find for collectors of Mel Ramos’s work. The card features a stunning rhinoceros design and is signed by the artist. Measuring 5×7 inches, this postcard is a great addition to any collection of non-topographical postcards or postcards in general. The card falls under the categories of postcards and supplies, as well as collectibles. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to own a piece of art history with this Mel Ramos rhinoceros postcard. Melvin John Ramos was an American figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of realist and abstract art. 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. Born in Sacramento, California, to a first generation Portuguese-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”. [3] He was also a university art professor. Ramos attended Sacramento Junior College and San Jose State College. One of his earliest art teachers was Wayne Thiebaud, who is considered his mentor, and who remained his friend. Ramos received his B. From Sacramento State College, finishing his education in 1958. He was Artist in Residence at Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin. Ramos married Leta (Helmers) Ramos in 1955, who was the model for many of his early nude paintings. Mel Ramos – Exhibition in Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, 2012. 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 and Andy 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 in 1963. [1] Along with Claes 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. 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, John Mattos and João de Brito. Ramos originally showed with Leo Castelli. Then Ivan Karp introduced Ramos’ work to the art dealer Louis Meisel. He was represented by the Louis 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). A major exhibition of his work was held at the Albertina in Vienna in 2011. A retrospective of over 50 years of his work opened at the Crocker 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. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D. Pop artist Mel Ramos, whose art was known for its striking juxtaposition of naked women with larger-than-life commercial products, has died at age 83. According to his daughter and studio manager, Rochelle Leininger, the cause of death was heart failure. While he never achieved the same level of fame as his fellow Pop art pioneers, Ramos was an important part of the first generation of American Pop artists. He was one of 12 artists, along with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 1963 Pop art show that showcased the burgeoning new movement, with Ramos’s paintings appropriating comic book imagery of female superheroes. “That was the beginnings of Pop art, ” Louis K. Meisel told artnet News. Meisel, who owns the eponymous Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York, has been Ramos’s dealer since 1971. Ramos originally showed with Leo Castelli, but the gallery wasn’t interested when the artist started focusing on more overtly sexual female nudes, satirizing the traditional commercial pin-up girl. “I guess that was pretty aggressive back in 1965, ” said Meisel, who was introduced to Ramos’s work by Castelli’s former associate director, Ivan Karp. He called me and said’I have a really great artist for you,’ but he didn’t tell me who. Mel Ramos showed up at the gallery in this big fur coat with this big afro haircut and he showed me his work. I took him in immediately and I’ve been representing him ever since. Mel Ramos, 100 Grand (2012). Courtesy of Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York. Ramos was “a remarkable human being, artist and teacher, ” gallerist Martin Muller told the San Francisco Chronicle. Muller is founder and president of Modernism gallery in San Francisco, which has represented the artist on the West Coast for 38 years. “Riding various political and social trends in the art world over the past decades, he remained focused on the act of painting, with passion, awareness and discipline, ” Muller said. The artist was born in Sacramento on July 24, 1935, and died at Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center on Sunday, October 14. He studied art under fellow Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud at Sacramento Junior College before earning a bachelor’s degree at Sacramento State College in 1957 and a master’s at the school the following year. Ramos worked as an art professor at California State University, East Bay, from 1966 to 1997, and was still an emeritus professor there following his retirement, splitting his time between Spain and Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood. Ramos is survived by his daughter Rochelle, his wife, Leta, and his son, Skot. Mel Ramos, Lucky Lulu Blonde (1965). If there was one thing that kept Ramos from achieving the levels of success enjoyed by his fellow Pop artists, it may have been his lack of production. In a lot of ways, Mel was equal to [Tom] Wesselmann and Lichenstein and, of course, Andy Warhol. The problem is, Andy Warhol left 36,000 works. Wesselmann is close to 8,000 or 10,000. Mel Ramos hand-painted everything tediously, Meisel explained, noting that Ramos’s full-time job teaching could sometimes leave little time for making new work. In his most famous year, 1965, he did 18 or 20 works. There are not 1,000 Ramoses in the world, so he hasn’t been as widely collected. Ramos’s sexualized imagery also led to criticism that the artist was demeaning women. “In the 1960s and’70s, feminism came along and there was this problem with nudity, ” Meisel acknowledged. I got a lot of flak from feminists at one time. Then I was in Europe at a show of 30 nudes at the Louvre. Here were magnificent nudes by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, and I felt validated, Ramos told the Sacramento Bee in 2012. I’m no longer defensive about my work. Senorita Rio – The Queen of Spies. Mel Ramos, Senorita Rio – The Queen of Spies (1963). In 2011, Ramos was the subject of a major survey at the Albertina in Vienna. His first hometown retrospective, “Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Superheroes, Nudes, and Other Pop Delights, ” followed at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum in 2012. His work can be found in the permanent collections of such prestigious institutions as New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art. Beyond NYC, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, also hold his works. The exhibition “Mel Ramos – Superheroes of 1963, ” featuring six of the 18 paintings from his first major series of Pop works, of female superheroes, opened at Louis K. Meisel Gallery on October 11 and is on view through November 10.