Collection: Mel Ramos

Mel Ramos (1935–2018, Sacramento) was an American painter central to the West Coast Pop Art movement. His work is characterised by the juxtaposition of the idealised nude female figure with branded consumer products — Coca-Cola, Velveeta, Chiquita — drawn directly from advertising and mass-media culture. Simultaneously celebratory and critical, his paintings occupy an uneasy position between desire, commodity and satire that has made them persistently controversial and persistently discussed.