Designed with a bold blue background which is certainly not found in Mel’s painting, this 1999 exhibition poster is actually kind of like a Comic Book variant – which is fitting, since The Nile Queen is an early female superhero, rendered, as all of this Pop Art master’s works are, as a fascinating character study, which yet amazingly, though a major work in its own right, is one of several transcendent Pop masterpieces within Mel’s canonical early 60s Female Superheroes series which he created during the dawn of the new movement, when three of its Founding Fathers — Lichtenstein, Ramos and Warhol — were all doing superheroes. Indeed, it was Roy Lichtenstein who recommended Mel to the scholar and titan of an impresario and activist Ivan Karp, who then introduced Mel to Lou Meisel, and the rest is Pop Art history. Notably, the original Nile Queen is one of Mel’s most populous works, with six figures depicted, five of which are hieroglyphics within the setting. Along with the Leta on Durer’s Rhino lithograph, (itself a variant of sorts, derived from Mel’s 1967 series-launching painting, Rhinoceros, starring Leta) Mel’s original Nile Queen is one of the few historical mise-en-scenes and immersive environs to be found in his oeuvre. Simply put, this rare and uniquely-sized 26-year old vintage poster which has been in storage its entire life — like an entombed Egyptian Queen returning from the crypt or in this case the Mel Ramos studio flats storage – has a novel brashness to its re-appropriation of a work in the service of promoting an exhibition of same. It perfectly fills a door panel, making the entire portal an objet d’art of a frame, a living functional work of art in one’s home. Photographed on a 24 inch x 36 inch frame for scale. MINT CONDITION: Obtained directly from the Mel Ramos Studio in October of 2023.