Mike Ramus's `Fine' Arts

"I don't get involved in long-term projects," Ramus says. So "illustration was perfect for me." He was struck by a quote that appeared in Larry Rivers' obituary last summer: "I go from this to that, and why be ashamed of it? It seems to me this is the human condition," Rivers had said. Noting that the different kinds of work he's done "have developed in parallel, rather than one from another," Ramus decided he, too, is a "this and that" sort -- making an easy job of the exhibition title.

On top of his commercial "day job," entailing regular commutes to New York City from his Princeton home, Ramus drew for fun, with no preconceived notion of image or message. Instantly funny and invariably satiric, these drawings have not been exhibited before. Luckily, Ramus took the concept of "retrospective" seriously, and together with other two- and three-dimensional work, showed some of these drawings to Naar, who, recognizing buried treasure when he saw it, counted them in -- first requiring Ramus to name them.

Modestly dubbed "doodles," his drawings might be viewed as microcosms of Ramus's art. Finely wrought and caption-free, they capture his irony and wit, a decidedly sharp-edged combination.

A nebbishy-looking little man, often balding and always endowed with a big nose is a ubiquitous Ramus character. He may be dressed in fancy military uniform ("I'm know for my irreverence toward military pomp and circumstance") or wearing business attire. Regardless, "The everyman figure expresses my basic view of the human condition as a losing battle against ignorance and error. Source material is no problem."

"All cartoonists have to do big noses," Ramus says, brushing aside any reference to his own petite proboscis. And that reminds him of a story about the old cartoonists' home, with "a string of old guys sitting on the porch, and one's saying, `I once drew a nose this big!'"

"I seem to have been able to render in various ways," Ramus began, in considering what about his career he most proud of. Although he thought of himself as a cartoonist, he could never manage punch lines. "I found my niche in the illustration business doing humorous drawings for otherwise serious articles."

"As a rule, the better the job, the less specific were the instructions of the art directors. They would just give you the typewritten script and the deadline. It was at the old Life magazine that I was first able to bring my cartooning bent into my work," he says. "At that time, there was not much `humorous' illustration being done in serious journalism. There were not really any precedents so what elements of style I developed were pretty much sui generis."

To imagine Ramus's "doodles," think of the drawings by Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), a particular Ramus favorite: "He is closest to my sensibilities. For me, the obvious view of the human condition is satirical, and his marvelous drawings are perfection." Steinberg's "View of the World from Manhattan" provided a livelihood for countless poster makers and artists who put their own spin on the concept. Who knows what will happen once Ramus's doodles are out there?

Doodles aside, Ramus's two-dimensional art also includes paintings and collages. "Poseidon's Anger," his mixed-media collage for the Princeton Artists Alliance's "Odyssey" exhibition, went on to become the catalog cover-image for the Newark Museum's recent reprise of that show. He has made oversized paintings of rusty railroad bolts and such objects in photo-realism style, and created a series of poster-size playing cards, giving them his own piquant twists. Overall, though, "I've always been more of a drawer than a painter," Ramus says.

His sculptures range from abstract ("Caribbean") to figurative-with-found-objects ("Old Man"), and from droll ("Fire Bird," a chicken whose rows of feathers are made of paper matches) or outright whimsical ("Dry Fly," festooned with shocking pink feathers and American flags, to lure a free-spirited and chauvinistic fish) to wistfully charming: his much loved papier-mache "Chimp." Ramus's paper sculptures include giant tools, a banana and a peanut -- all apparently on steroids. His three-foot long lion, couchant, was suggest ed by a stone sarcophagus from Cyprus, and he has tired, so far unsuccessfully, to have it cast.

In all cases, Ramus's witty art comes stocked with allusions and suggestions. Charles McVicker, a colleague in the Princeton Artists Alliance, says, "Mike is one of the serious artists who can combine that with a wry sense of humor. He knows art history and incorporates that knowledge in what he does."

"He never compromises the aesthetic integrity for the whimsy or satire he expresses," adds Margaret K. Johnson, another PAA colleague and one who has enjoyed a couple shared shows with Ramus. Gallery director Naar sums up: "Mike's work can be appreciated on a variety of levels."

"Part Danish, Irish, German, English -- a typical American," Ramus was born in Naples, where his doctor-musician father was stationed with the U.S. Public Health Service. He was the first of two children (his sister lives in Doylestown), and his mother, who felt strongly about the arts, encouraged his early drawing.

He attended Lincoln School, affiliated with Teachers College Columbia, in New York, and while his father was stationed in Boston, Shady Hall School in Cambridge. Then came two years at Exeter and a brief stay at Yale before he quit to go to art school, starting at the Art Students League.

Ramus's first job was drawing comic books, and it lasted till March 1940, when his draft number came up. ("I missed a $5 raise by a week.") During more than four years in the Army, he spent some time in the Recruiting Publicity Bureau on Governor's Island. Some of his art department colleagues came from the advertising business, and before long he had his first commercial art job.

With his late wife, Grace, Ramus has three children; his two daughters live in the area, and his son is based in New Hampshire.

Maybe of necessity, this "this and that" artist is ambidextrous. He's a lefty for drawing and painting, but spells himself by eating and writing with his right hand. Those who have enjoyed his notes and cards, often including quick sketches, can savor the fact that two hands produced them.

Ramus is also left-handed in golf, which he took up at 75. "I reached my peak a while ago," he claims -- a statement disputed by golfing partner Bill Dwyer, former columnist with the Trenton Times: "I used to beat Mike," Dwyer said. "Now he beats me. He's in good shape. He's accurate and he's a great hitter." Dwyer and Ramus were often half of golf and tennis foursomes with author J.P. Miller and Governor Brendan Byrne.

The announcement card for Ramus's retrospective at Rider shows his "Egyptian Golf" (tempera on gesso), complete with what at first appear to be classic poses, symbols, and hieroglyphics. Then the mushroom cloud in the upper-right sequence, followed by a green mutant form of life, suggest otherwise. His collage from earlier this year includes a golf-ball image and the kind of delicious ambiguity that marks his work.

"Retired Artist," a Ramus doodle, shows a man pushing a disk on a shuffleboard . . . with a giant paintbrush. It is not a self-portrait of Ramus -- one more artist making "retired artist" a contradiction in terms. Praise be!

-- Pat Summers

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Also "The Berenstain Bears Celebrate: The Art of Stan and Jan Berenstain," the storybook authors' first museum retrospective, organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum. The show coincides with the publication of "Down a Sunny Dirt Road: An Autobiography" by Random House; to January 12. $10; $7 children.

Also, "Retreating to Ideal Environments," works from the New Hope colony by Daniel Garber, Fern Coppedge, Robert Spencer, and others; to February 2. Open Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Wednesday evenings to 9 p.m.

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Also "Yurii Dyshlenko: Abstraction, Modernity, and Mass Media;" to January 12. "The National Association of Women Artists Collection at Rutgers," to December 8. "Identity and Resistance: Abstract Painting from the Dodge Collection," to November 17. "Ben Shahn: The Rilke Portfolio," to December 31. Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Spotlight tours every Sunday at 2 and 3 p.m. Admission $3 adults; under 18 free; and free on the first Sunday of every month.

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