(born 1935 in Sacramento, California)
Hav-a-Havanna, signed, dated Mel Ramos 96, coloured pencils, graphite on arches, 56.5 x 55.2 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
Private Property, Germany

From 1963 onwards, Mel Ramos devoted himself to the central motif of his artistic oeuvre: from figures of female superheroes such as Wonder Woman, he gradually shifted to the depiction of pin-up girls and echoing the typical compositional arrangements used in advertising. Mel Ramos combined these figurines and props with popular foods, drink and tobacco, in most individual constructions; he was less interested in stressing typical aspects of a specific phenomenon of reality (as is customary in the advertising industry) than in articulating his own subjective views on the subject, thus revealing a reflexive habit.

Unlike the anonymous, mechanised production techniques that deprive designs of their individual signature, Ramos deals with his chosen subjects in an impasto manner, stressing the traces of crayon, and transforming them artistically. Ramos places the three-dimensional figure of a “beauty” at the centre of the picture, creating a harmonious balance with a vertical dominant, placing behind it a type of screen, with a large, circular cutout. The pin-up beauty looks out through the screen with its monochrome, almost heraldic form, to establish direct eye contact with the viewer and thereby entering into dialogue with them. The girl displays the typical features of well-known starlets; a stereotypically winning smile on her lips and naturally wavy hair. Ramos outlines their figures accurately and modulates their volumes with precise shading. However, a contrast is created between the plasticity of the body and the flat, surface-like background against which the figure is depicted without casting a shadow. Mel Ramos lends the cigar, a consumer product, the same size as the girl, so that the girl and cigar appear to have equal value in terms of image content. In addition to formal ambivalence, Mel Ramos evokes a semantic ambiguity outside the picture, which results from combining fragments of divergent reality.