At right you see a reproduction of his ‘Believe’ painting.
The paintings are not (usually) unique; Ramirez has a limited number of subjects that he paints again and again and again.
From the McPhee site: In his tireless pursuit of perfection, Pietro Ramirez would paint each painting hundreds, sometimes thousands of times. Limited quantities of these numbered original oil paintings are only available through Archie McPhee. Each painting is set in a 25” x 19” frame, signed and numbered by the artist, and is sure to be a great conversation piece for any room in your home or office.
Other works include The Albino Bowler, a Tiki scene, a Unicorn Dreams painting and others. There are also references to a book on ‘The Art of Kissing’ but I am not certain if the author and artist are the same person.
I am not sure what to make of the whole thing — while the ‘chuckling behind our hands’ of the McPhee approach to marketing is a fun in a superficial sort of way, I find myself wondering who Ramirez is (or is he just a fake name to be applied to the phenomenon of ‘crappy lowbrow paintings’) and why he paints the same thing again and again. $99.00 does not seem to be a lot of money for a painting (and, by artist economies, it makes me suspect that Ramirez would be getting at most $50.00 gross (before paying for paint, canvas, the frame, etc.) for each painting.
A very superficial probe of google yields numerous references to ‘Pietro Ramirez’ and his paintings (“Albino Bowler” seems to be a favorite) as well as ‘The Art of Kissing’ book, but I don’t know what part of this is a big joke and kitsch marketed for the masses and whether or not Ramirez really exists.