The Image is Erotic, But is It Art? the NY Times on Pop Artist Mel Ramos
Interestingly enough, the single image of mine in over 20,000 on Flickr that remains censored by Flickr is an image of a woman by artist Mel Ramos (seen here and that I blogged yesterday). The image is from a painting that hangs in the Oakland Museum of California as part of their permanent collection. There is also another Mel Ramos painting in the de Young (the Superman image — I thought the two images above went together well) but that’s certainly less controversial than a female nude.
Mel Ramos has been one of my favorite artists for a while. A lot of people consider him a Pop artist in the style of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, etc. But I’ve always thought of him first and foremost as a representative of the photo realism school of painting. However you think of and classify Ramos though, his art is interesting, provocative, contemporary and certainly controversial.
Last week, the New York Times (thanks to the Oakland Museum of California for the heads up) published an article entitled, “The Image Is Erotic. But Is It Art? ” where they took a look at Ramos and his body of work (literally and figuratively speaking). If you are interested in Ramos or his work, I’d recommend the article.
Mel Ramos is represented by the Louis K. Meisel (who invented the term photorealism) Gallery.
