A Panoply of Pin-Ups

Mel Ramos’s paintings of 1950s-era pin-up girls—variously popping out of Snickers bars, leaning on packets of Lucky Strike or caressing giant Coca Cola bottles—offer a humorous, overblown take on that age-old advertising adage: sex sells. The West Coast counterpart to Manhattan’s Warhol and Lichtenstein, Ramos was among the artists that defined pop art in the 1960s. Unlike many of his screen-print-obsessed contemporaries, however, he has always preferred painting by hand, creating meticulously executed, glossy works that betray his early love for Dali and Spanish renaissance painters. Mel Ramos: 50 Years of Pop Art is published by Hatje Cantz this month.