Among the exhibitions accompanying the 2026 Art Biennale, the show dedicated to Mel Ramos is a gem worth discovering for several reasons: he was the first artist to paint popular DC Comics superheroes on canvas, treating them with the visual dignity of figurative oil painting; a pioneer of “California Pop Art” (West Coast vs. East Coast); and the first to visually conceptualize how modern marketing harnessed erotic desire to sell everyday consumer goods. An artist absolutely worth discovering—or rediscovering.

I make sure that my pictures are not too erotic and that they always have a trace of humor. I make sure they are ‘in good taste.’ Either you understand it or not

(Mel Ramos)

History and Art

Born in Sacramento in 1935, Mel Ramos was one of the founding fathers of American Pop Art in the 1960s, appearing alongside giants such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol in the famous 1962 *New Realists* exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York.

While Lichtenstein drew upon the world of comic books and Warhol on the serial nature of supermarket products, Ramos focused his artistic exploration on the female body and the seductive imagery of advertising.

His most celebrated works—the iconic Commercial Pin-Ups and Unfinished Paintings series—depict alluring pin-ups lounging atop cigarette packs, soda cans, or ketchup bottles, masterfully reinterpreting the canons of classical painting (from Ingres to Titian) by fusing them with the glossy techniques of commercial illustration.

Why Mel Ramos deserves the same fame as Warhol (and the role of state marketing)

Despite his extraordinary painterly mastery—far superior to that of many of his contemporaries—Mel Ramos has often remained relatively obscure to the general Italian public compared to famous figures like Andy Warhol.

The reason for this discrepancy lies in the very functioning of the Pop Art movement: an artistic movement that was strongly pushed and conveyed on a global scale by the American government and by the logic of institutional marketing during the Cold War. Pop Art was promoted as the supreme symbol of freedom of expression, mass consumption and American cultural hegemony.

In this great media operation, figures like Warhol represented the perfect embodiment of the perfect brand: the “media” character, the technical reproducibility and the cancellation of the pictorial gesture in favor of the commercial concept. Ramos, on the contrary, continued to paint with artisanal technical expertise and great figurative mastery, maintaining a strongly ironic streak and without filters on desire and advertising objectification.

From the 1970s onwards, Ramos developed a unique and irreverent style: he took absolute masterpieces of classical art history—such as Titian’s Venus of Urbino, Manet’s Olympia, or Ingres’s Grande Odalisque—and replaced the faces and bodies of the classical Venuses with the features of pin-ups and models from contemporary magazines.

The exhibition at Palazzo Bragadin Carabba (open from May 3 to November 22, 2026; curated by Elisa Carollo and produced by Ronald Harrar) is the first major, comprehensive retrospective ever held in Italy dedicated to this West Coast Pop Art master. Don’t miss it (and the shop and merchandise are fantastic!).

The Secret

In 1963, when Mel Ramos began painting his famous superheroes and advertising-style pin-ups, he was working as a high school art teacher in California. To avoid trouble with the school board—scandalized by the risqué poses of his models, who were drawn from men’s magazines—Ramos kept his studio hidden and signed some of his early illustrations with a pseudonym before finally achieving acclaim in New York galleries.

Useful Info

Mel Ramos – Pop Art & Pin-Ups
Palazzo Bragadin Carabba
30122 Sestiere Castello 6041

Tuesday – Sunday, 10:00 – 18:00 (Closed on Mondays)
Free admission