Mel Ramos - Editions & Works on Paper New York Thursday, February 15, 2024 | Phillips
  • “I’m not interested in style... I’m interested in looking.”
    —Robert Bechtle
    The collection of Robert Bechtle and Whitney Chadwick, assembled over their nearly forty-year marriage, reflects Bechtle’s legacy as a preeminent Photorealist along with Chadwick’s expertise as a historian and scholar. With works by Wayne Thiebaud, Ed Ruscha, and Leonora Carrington, among others, their extensive collection of editions and works on paper represents many of Bechtle’s fellow Bay Area artists, notable names in Pop, and female figureheads of Modernism and Surrealism whom Chadwick championed through her writings and teachings.   

     

    Known for his tightly detailed renderings of suburban landscapes and vintage cars, Bechtle is considered one of the founding Photorealists, a set of artists who used photographs as a point of departure for their hyperrealist art. Such interest in notions of realism permeate the works on offer, presenting a multitude of the artistic methodologies for interpreting the world: a visual interpretation of the musicality and movement of a ballet, postmodern representations of landscape, a surreal memory of a childhood home, and even different artists’ renditions of Bechtle himself. Following his passing at the age of 88 in 2020, Bechtle’s legacy persists through his collection, inspiring the continued search for unexpected beauty in the everyday. 

    • Provenance

      Gift of the artist

    • Literature

      Tamarind Institute 81-105

    • Artist Biography

      Mel Ramos

      American • 1935

      Mel Ramos is an American Pop artist best known for his paintings of female nudes alongside brand logos. His depictions of women with everyday products celebrate aspects of popular culture represented in mass media and advertising. Like his contemporaries Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Ramos was inspired by comic books and grew up drawing cartoons and characters from their pages. The artist's works, including paintings, prints and works on paper, feature in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others.

      View More Works

Property from the Robert Bechtle and Whitney Chadwick Trust, San Francisco, California

70

Oakland: Ode to Moe (Palm Trees) (T. 81-105)

1981
Lithograph in colors, on Arches paper, with full margins.
I. 20 x 27 7/8 in. (50.8 x 70.8 cm)
S. 22 x 30 1/4 in. (55.9 x 76.8 cm)

Signed, dated, dedicated 'To Whitney and Bob with Love' and numbered 9/45 in pencil, published by Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque (with their blindstamp), framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$800 - 1,000 

Sold for $2,540

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 15 February 2024