Customer Reviews

Mel Ramos Pop Art Fantasies: The Complete Paintings

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While the majority of this book looks great, it is dragged down by very poor reproduction on several of the images. I understand and appreciate that doing a complete monograph of a particular artist with a large output can be daunting. There is no excuse, however, for the poorly photographed images that were used for some of the paintings. I have been an amateur photographer for over 20 years and I can say with great confidence that a cheap "point-and-shoot" camera had to have been used on at least a few of the paintings. Poor color quality, washed out areas caused by the flash, bad lighting, extremely grainy images. This is basic photography 101. Some of these problems could have been taken care of with photo manipulation software as well. This does not appear to have been employed either. I know that some of the same paintings are reproduced in other art books in much better quality, so good photos do exist. I do, however, give it the benefit of the doubt in my rating, for the rest of the book. If not for poor quality control this would be highly recommended.

If there's ever a hall of fame opened for pin-up artists, Mel Ramos is sure to be a first ballot inductee. Pop Art Fantasies is the ultimate book for fans of Ramos as it collects all known existing paintings and watercolors by the artist, 480 in all collected within the pages of this beautiful, over-sized hard cover book. The book contains a foreward by Ramos himself and a lengthy essay on the artist's career by art critic Donald Kuspit. In his essay, Kuspit takes perhaps the most in depth look yet into Ramos' work, comparing his pop imagery to such other artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and delving into the ironic contradictions in his work over the various stages of his career. While Kuspit at times is a bit guilty over analyzing Ramos' work, the essay is nevertheless informative.

The book displays Mel's art by subject matter beginning with his early 1960's paintings of heroes and heroines such as Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Green Lanter, Dr. Midnite, and The Spectre. While not his most polished work, it's certainly interesting to see these rather fannish paintings by a guy not noted for this type of work. His painting of Batman entitled "A Sinister Figure Walks" has a notable Bob Kane influence to it. His paintings of early pulp and comic heroines like Sheena and the Phantom Lady would begin to set the tone for his future pin-up work.

Next we move into the two areas where Ramos truly made his mark as both a pin-up artist and a pop artist as we look at his peek-a-boo art and his consumer advertising art. Influenced by the great Gil Elvgren, Ramos's playful peeks into women's bedrooms through keyholes are the stuff of legends and capture that spunky yet still innocent era of the pre-protest 1960's. Ramos's advertising art is even more interesting as he places his nude models with logos for such products as Velveeta cheese, Colgate toothpaste, Valvoline oil, AC spark plugs, and Coca Cola. His Chiquita banana paintings are especially fun as the girl stands in for the banana, unpeeled, or stripped in a not so subtle sexual suggestion. Ramos did the same with his women and candy bar ads as the wrapper to an Almond Joy is peeled away to reveal a beautiful, naked woman.

The section on Beauties and Beasts is rather amusing as the models seem wildly out of place with the animals they are drawn with but I think that's exactly what Ramos was going for. He has his women riding zebras, sitting in the laps of panda bears, cavorting with seals, and posing playfully with gorillas and bears.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the section on Lost Paintings. These are paintings that were started as concepts in the mid-1960's that were never finished. Ramos has now gone back and finished some of these classic product ads but with women painted in a more modern, 21st century style. Once again Ramos makes use of popular products like Cracker Jack or Planters Nuts to display his phenomenal women. What I love about Ramos is that even with his later work he was always painting real women with real curves, not exaggerated females with rail-thin waists and abnormally large breasts. These women truly were the girl next door types.

Kuspit provides a detailed biography on Ramos as well as lists of his public collections, solo and group exhibitions and magazine and book credits. A remarkable book and a must have for pin-up fans.

Reviewed by Tim Janson