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Lot Essay
One of Mel Ramos' earliest Pop Icons, Camilla II is the pure commodification of American lust. A signature image from his Heroine series, Ramos has transformed the ultimate American sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe into the superhero Camilla creating the perfect ingenue. Monroe's sultry face and fleshy body are rendered in swirling hues of pinks, purples and reds magnifying Camilla's impact.
Ramos, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein all began painting images from comic books in 1961. Whereas Warhol quickly abandoned this project, Ramos and Lichtenstein embraced comics. While Lichtenstein's paintings are images of single frames taken out of context, Ramos presented his Heroines as if they were the cover of the comic. The word "Camilla" is emblazoned behind the splendid full portrait of this powerfully sexy woman with the image illustrating the word and vice-versa. Ramos' co-opting of cover art was a declaration of the truism that sex sells.
Far from copying the slick printing quality that is found in comic books and the works of Lichtenstein, Ramos employed a painterly style with lots of impasto. Bright colors and strong texture give form to Ramos' buxom heroine. Ramos' painterliness was influenced by his studies with Wayne Thiebaud. Ramos and Thiebaud share luscious surfaces and delicate shimmering outlines of their figures. Robert Rosenblum writes, "Above all, there was Wayne Thiebaud, whose regimented line-ups of row after row of American junk food were rendered like Ramos' girls, fruit and comicsfrom the moist surfaces of creamy artifice it was clear that Ramoshad touched the very pulse of the 60s in the way that new art always changes our perception of old art" (R. Rosenblum, Mel Ramos: Pop Art Images, Cologne, 1994, p. 17).
Andy Warhol, Orange Marilyn, 1962 c 2003 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York
Ramos, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein all began painting images from comic books in 1961. Whereas Warhol quickly abandoned this project, Ramos and Lichtenstein embraced comics. While Lichtenstein's paintings are images of single frames taken out of context, Ramos presented his Heroines as if they were the cover of the comic. The word "Camilla" is emblazoned behind the splendid full portrait of this powerfully sexy woman with the image illustrating the word and vice-versa. Ramos' co-opting of cover art was a declaration of the truism that sex sells.
Far from copying the slick printing quality that is found in comic books and the works of Lichtenstein, Ramos employed a painterly style with lots of impasto. Bright colors and strong texture give form to Ramos' buxom heroine. Ramos' painterliness was influenced by his studies with Wayne Thiebaud. Ramos and Thiebaud share luscious surfaces and delicate shimmering outlines of their figures. Robert Rosenblum writes, "Above all, there was Wayne Thiebaud, whose regimented line-ups of row after row of American junk food were rendered like Ramos' girls, fruit and comicsfrom the moist surfaces of creamy artifice it was clear that Ramoshad touched the very pulse of the 60s in the way that new art always changes our perception of old art" (R. Rosenblum, Mel Ramos: Pop Art Images, Cologne, 1994, p. 17).
Andy Warhol, Orange Marilyn, 1962 c 2003 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, New York