ARTIST MONOGRAPHS

Mel Ramos

Museum Exhibition Catalogues, Monographs, Artist's Projects, Curatorial Writings and Essays


"Mel Ramos focused to an even greater extent than Warhol and Lichtenstein on a single topic: the female nude, posed against a neutral background, a persiflage of the sales law 'sex sells.' Mel Ramos eroticises product presentation and its seductive promises and clichés, however without slipping into caricature or an offensive criticism of consumer aesthetics."
Klaus Schröder, excerpted from the text to Mel Ramos: 100+ Drawings.

           

ACTIVE BACKLIST

Mel Ramos: First Kiss

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

A concise overview of the Pop maestro’s works on paper across a half-century

Hbk, 9 x 10.5 in. / 104 pgs / 75 color / 44 bw. | 5/23/2023 | In stock
$50.00


Mel Ramos: The Definitive Catalogue Raisonné of Original Prints

VERLAG FüR MODERNE KUNST
Preface by Ernst Hilger. Text by Claire Breukel, Jeanette Zwingenberger.

A complete documentation of pop protagonist Mel Ramos’ printed works on paper

Pbk, 9.25 x 12 in. / 250 pgs / 193 color. | 9/15/2020 | In stock
$45.00


Mel Ramos: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings 1953–2015

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

Hbk, 9.5 x 12.25 in. / 320 pgs / 530 color. | 2/28/2017 | Out of stock
$65.00


Mel Ramos: Superman at the Supermarket

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Konstantin Jacoby.

Hbk, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 96 pgs / 59 color / 9 bw. | 3/22/2016 | Out of stock
$29.95


Mel Ramos: Exceptional Editions

VERLAG FüR MODERNE KUNST
Edited with text by Anke Wiedmann. Text by Ernst Hilger.

Hbk, 9.25 x 12 in. / 72 pgs / 35 color. | 2/23/2016 | In stock
$45.00


Richard Müller & Mel Ramos: Beauty and the Beast

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy, Hans Werner Schmidt. Text by Belinda Grace-Gardner, Frank Günther, Richard Hüttel, Jan Nicolaisen.

Hbk, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 176 pgs / 119 color / 7 bw. | 3/31/2014 | Out of stock
$55.00


        

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

Mel Ramos: 100+ Drawings

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Klaus Schröder.

Hbk, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 128 pgs / 113 color / 30 bw. | 9/30/2011 | Not available
$39.95


Mel Ramos

HATJE CANTZ
Text by Otto Letze, Klaus Honnef, Daniel J. Schreiber.

Pbk, 6.25 x 8.25 in. / 280 pgs / 150 color. | 5/31/2010 | Not available
$30.00


Mel Ramos: I Love Women

KERBER
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner, Mel Ramos.

Hardback, 4.75 x 8.75 in. / 96 pgs / 59 color / 3 bw. | 3/1/2008 | Not available
$14.50


Mel Ramos

KERBER
Artwork by Mel Ramos. Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

Hardcover, 8.5 x 10.5 in. / 256 pgs / 200 color. | 2/2/2003 | Not available
$45.00


Mel Ramos: First KissMel Ramos: First Kiss

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

American painter Mel Ramos (1935–2018) cemented himself as a key figure in Pop art at a momentous 1963 group exhibition at LACMA that presented his work alongside that of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. He then established a signature style for himself by appropriating and recontextualizing the sexually provocative imagery found in magazine ads of that time. Ramos’s most famous paintings feature voluptuous female nudes positioned on top of various consumer goods, including corn stalks, Chiquita bananas, candy wrappers and martini glasses.
This new catalog presents approximately 70 works on paper spanning his entire career, including never-before-published preliminary sketches and finished oil paintings, rendered in a classic Pop color palette of bright pinks, yellows, blues and greens. The works presented vividly convey the artist’s meticulous eye for composition.



PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9 x 10.5 in. / 104 pgs / 75 color / 44 bw.

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Catalog: SPRING 2023 p. 100   

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ISBN 9783735608857 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CDN $70.00

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Mel Ramos: The Definitive Catalogue Raisonné of Original PrintsMel Ramos: The Definitive Catalogue Raisonné of Original Prints

Published by Verlag für moderne Kunst.
Preface by Ernst Hilger. Text by Claire Breukel, Jeanette Zwingenberger.

Richly illustrated in color, Mel Ramos: The Definitive Catalogue Raisonné of Original Prints includes two essays by art historians and curators Claire Breukel and Jeanette Zwingenberger, who analyze Ramos’ lifelong artistic engagement with the female nude.

From a very early stage in his artistic career, Mel Ramos (1935–2018) explored printed editions as part of his oeuvre. The earliest of these were still in an abstract expressionist idiom, but the artist began engaging with the medium in earnest in the mid-1960s, as the pop style for which he is famed took shape. Pop art’s inspiration in consumer goods and mass media naturally led to experiments with commercial printing methods such as silk-screening, and Ramos was one of its foremost practitioners.

This catalog is an invaluable resource for researchers, collectors and aficionados alike.



PUBLISHER
Verlag für moderne Kunst

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.25 x 12 in. / 250 pgs / 193 color.

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2020 p. 140   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783903320222 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $63.00

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Mel Ramos: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings 1953–2015Mel Ramos: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings 1953–2015

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

At the beginning of the 1960s, Mel Ramos (born 1935) devoted himself to the central theme of his oeuvre, developing the visual vocabulary that has become so characteristic of his work: naked women adorning oversized advertisement images. Mixing idealized women with the imagery of pop culture––Chiquita bananas, coke bottles and comic books––his colorful, two-dimensional oil paintings act as formulations of an erotic fantasy that represents a fundamental pattern of marketing strategies in advertising. Humorous and provocative, Ramos’ works blend sex and materialism, emulating the glossy flatness of a pin-up magazine.

At over 300 pages, and with over 500 color illustrations, Mel Ramos captures the artist’s entire painterly oeuvre, from his first works in the ‘50s until today, demonstrating his enduring position in the West Coast Pop movement.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 12.25 in. / 320 pgs / 530 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2017 p. 98   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783735602848 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CDN $87.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

Mel Ramos: Superman at the SupermarketMel Ramos: Superman at the Supermarket

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Konstantin Jacoby.

In the early 1960s, Mel Ramos (born 1935), one of the first artists to embrace Pop art, abandoned Abstract Expressionism and began to produce the work for which he is best known: glossy, flat paintings of idealized, voluptuous female nudes emerging from banana peels, lounging on top of cigars or caressing bottles of ketchup. Taking advertising’s enduring maxim "sex sells" to its most extreme ends, Ramos poses the nude female figure in erotic, occasionally even vulgar, positions on top of the most banal consumer goods. Beauty queens, martini glasses, nude Hollywood starlets and hamburgers are given equal attention in Ramos’ artistic universe; if Ramos has been criticized for commodifying the female form it must also be acknowledged that he eroticizes the commodity. Mel Ramos: Superman at the Supermarket is a homage to Ramos, published in celebration of his 80th birthday.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 96 pgs / 59 color / 9 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2016 p. 140   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783735601667 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

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Out of stock

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

Mel Ramos: Exceptional EditionsMel Ramos: Exceptional Editions

Published by Verlag für moderne Kunst.
Edited with text by Anke Wiedmann. Text by Ernst Hilger.

Exceptional Editions compiles all of the special editions produced by the great American Pop artist Mel Ramos (born 1935), including sculptures, works on enamel, backlit frames and bas-relief works, as well as all of the prints published since 2013 (thus updating the previous volume Mel Ramos: New Prints). Like his fellow painters Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Ramos adopts motifs from mass media and advertising. In the early 1960s he attracted attention with painted appropriations of comic book heroes such as Batman and Superman. In the mid-60s, he began to incorporate pin-ups into his paintings, which he juxtaposed comically and revealingly with American consumer products.

PUBLISHER
Verlag für moderne Kunst

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.25 x 12 in. / 72 pgs / 35 color.

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Pub Date
Active

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2016 p. 140   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783903004443 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

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In stock

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Mel Ramos: New PrintsMel Ramos: New Prints

Catalogue Raisonné of Original Prints

Published by Moderne Kunst Nürnberg.
Text by Claire Breukel, Jeanette Zwingenberger.

Mel Ramos (born 1935) rose to prominence as an important exponent of Pop art after exhibiting in shows alongside Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol in the early 1960s. Juxtaposing glamorous bodies with the seductive but hollow artifacts of American consumerism, Ramos is perhaps best known for his distinctive female nudes--stylish pin-up girls bedded on fruit or posing lasciviously with, or popping out of, larger-than-life consumer goods such as candy bars and soft drinks. Throughout his career, Ramos has explored these motifs in prints as much as in paintings. Mel Ramos: New Prints surveys a range of Ramos’ print work, starting from his figurative departure from Abstract Expressionism to his portraits of comic book heroes such as Wonder Woman and his satirical nudes lampooning brand advertising.

PUBLISHER
Moderne Kunst Nürnberg

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.25 x 12 in. / 180 pgs / 200 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of stock indefinitely

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D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 111   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783869844701 TRADE
List Price: $42.50 CDN $57.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.

Richard Müller & Mel Ramos: Beauty and the BeastRichard Müller & Mel Ramos: Beauty and the Beast

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy, Hans Werner Schmidt. Text by Belinda Grace-Gardner, Frank Günther, Richard Hüttel, Jan Nicolaisen.

Beauty and the Beast offers a provocative juxtaposition of California-based Pop artist Mel Ramos (born 1935) and German graphic artist Richard Müller (1874–1954). Ramos famously juxtaposes immaculate, self-assured women with consumer goods, while Müller portrays unreserved, naturalistic nudes.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 176 pgs / 119 color / 7 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

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Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 187   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783866788596 FLAT40
List Price: $55.00 CDN $72.50

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

Mel Ramos: 100+ DrawingsMel Ramos: 100+ Drawings

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Klaus Schröder.

A leading figure in the West Coast Pop movement, American artist Mel Ramos (born 1935) blends sex and materialism in an openly raunchy iconography of liberated allure, everyday myths and the synthetic dreams of the advertising world. He first gained notoriety in the 1960s for his “commercial pin-ups,” voluptuous nude women draped over brand-name commercial products such as processed cheese, toothpaste, candy bars, soda pop and cigarettes. He continues to expand on this series today, now working in sculpture and tapestry in addition to painting and printmaking, variously incorporating the faces of famous actresses as a reflection of our celebrity-obsessed culture. This catalogue is the first to focus exclusively on Ramos's drawings. It includes sketches and drawings from the 1960s to the present day.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 128 pgs / 113 color / 30 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

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Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 73   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783866784444 TRADE
List Price: $39.95 CDN $53.95

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Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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Mel RamosMel Ramos

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Text by Otto Letze, Klaus Honnef, Daniel J. Schreiber.

Like his fellow Pop painters Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos (born 1935) derives the motifs for his work from mass media and advertising. In bold and immediately recognizable canvases, he unites consumer goods with idealized pin-up girls modeled after magazine images dating from the 1950s and 1960s. Ramos immortalizes these models' lascivious poses by entwining them with the featured products in what he calls “commercial pin-ups.” This monograph illustrates and discusses many of these works, but also provides insight into the artist's multifaceted oeuvre by presenting more than 100 works, from his first portraits of people, comic heroes and heroines, and his prominent pin-up girls, to his latest works from the Galatea series. Celebrating the artist's 75th birthday, this catalogue accompanies a major European retrospective, the first to unite Ramos' drawings, paintings and sculptures.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.25 x 8.25 in. / 280 pgs / 150 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 73   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775725316 TRADE
List Price: $30.00 CDN $35.00

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Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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Mel Ramos: I Love WomenMel Ramos: I Love Women

Published by Kerber.
Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner, Mel Ramos.

The title of this pocket-sized monograph says it all. Whether painting a gorgeous Monica Vitti-esque bombshell leaning on a Del Monte ketchup bottle in 1971, a Matisse-inspired redhead reclining on an abstracted chair or an Uma-Thurmanish blonde laying on a giant pack of 5 Flavor Life Savers, the rebel figurative painter Mel Ramos is widely viewed as one of the most significant representatives of the California Pop movement. Like his colleagues in the New York Pop scene, he began his career as a commercial artist and was interested in the everyday myths of his time, from comic-strip figures to the synthetic dreams proposed by the advertising world. Since 1963, Ramos has fleshed out just about every popular erotic fantasy of women, from the cartoon superheroine to the dominatrix to the pinup girl. He has also turned an ironic eye to the classical female nude, painting cyclical series of the love lives of the ancient gods and painterly paraphrases of classical masterpieces by Ingres, Manet, Modigliani and de Kooning. With an interview of the artist by Belinda Grace Gardner.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardback, 4.75 x 8.75 in. / 96 pgs / 59 color / 3 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2008 p. 143   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783866780767 TRADE
List Price: $14.50 CDN $17.50

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 12/1/2010

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

Mel RamosMel Ramos

Published by Kerber.
Artwork by Mel Ramos. Edited by Thomas Levy. Text by Belinda Grace Gardner.

Eroticism, women, sex, women, fetishism, women and obsession--of all the pop artists, it is perhaps Mel Ramos who has dealt most intensively and consistently with these enjoyable subjects. Always bright, always provocative, and always entertaining, his appropriations of some of the most vulgar yet familiar imagery to come out of the 1960s and 1970s advertising world never fail to make the viewer blush with shame and almost simultaneously question such a moralistic reaction. If at first sight his paintings and graphic works are mistaken for typical, if raunchy, product placements, the absurdity of a naked girlie riding a giant cigar soon becomes apparent, as does the subtle surrealism of another naked pinup girl holding a giant spark plug in front of a corporate emblem. Sex and consumer culture never looked so good together, or so parodic.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 8.5 x 10.5 in. / 256 pgs / 200 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2003

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783933040886 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $55.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 11/25/2008

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

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