Mel Ramos

Captain Midnight, 1962

Oil on Canvas

Skot Ramos Collection © VBK Vienna, 2011

The Albertina will dedicate a broad exhibition to the important Pop Art exponent Mel Ramos. The occasion of the exhibition was the Californian artist’s 75 ^th birthday in 2010 as well as a celebration of over fifty years of the Pop Art movement. A representative selection of Ramos’s oeuvre, it focuses primarily on his paintings, and also includes preliminary sketches. The major works on display cover the entire spectrum of the artist’s creative phases, from the figurative depictions departing from abstract expressionism in his early paintings, through to his pictures of comic heroes and Wonder Woman from the 1960s, and, of course, the commercial pin-ups that made Ramos famous in the late 1960s. In his satire on brand advertising, the humorous artist depicts stylish pin-up girls in these oil paintings, wrapped lasciviously around giant Coke bottles, cigarette packets and pieces of diced cheese. The exhibition also features the series A Salute to Art History, in which the artist peps up nude pictures of classical masters with pop culture’s sex appeal, and paintings of Californian landscapes that most people would not associate with Ramos.