Mel Ramos: New Prints: Catalogue Raisonné of Original Prints

Mel Ramos: New Prints is a catalogue raisonné of the original prints of the American Pop painter Mel Ramos, with texts by Claire Breukel and Jeanette Zwingenberger.

Moderne Kunst Nürnberg published the paperback in April 2014. It runs to 180 pages with 200 color illustrations. According to the D.A.P. listing, the prints it surveys begin with Ramos’s move from Abstract Expressionism toward figuration. They continue through portraits of comic-book heroes such as Wonder Woman and on to satirical nudes that lampoon brand advertising.

Ramos was born in Sacramento in 1935 and taught at California State University, Hayward, from 1966 to 1997. In the early 1960s he exhibited alongside Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. He is best known for female nudes set in the language of commercialism and graphic design, emerging from candy wrappers or lounging in martini glasses. His 2012 retrospective at the Crocker Art Museum, where he had his first exhibition in 1957, was titled Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Superheroes, Nudes and Other Pop Delights.