Andy Warhol Ladies and Gentlemen 137 screenprint cropped into a square to preview the artwork.
Andy Warhol Ladies and Gentlemen 137 basic scan.
ANdy Warhol's signature on the back of Ladies and Gentlemen 137.
Andy Warhol Ladies and Gentlemen series, framed and hanging on the wall next to a gallery visitor.
Size comparison imafe for Ladies and Gentlemen 137, showing the size of the print to be 43 and 1/2 by 28 and 1/2 inches.
Andy Warhol photographing Marsha P Johnson in his factory with a polaroid camera for his Ladies and Gentlemen series.

Ladies and Gentlemen 137

Catalog Title: Ladies and Gentlemen (FS II.137)
Year: 1975
Size: 43 1/3" x 28 1/2"
Medium: Screenprint on Arches Paper
Edition: Edition of 250, 25 AP, 1PP signed, numbered, and dated ‘75 in pencil on verso.
Hidden

Ladies and Gentleman 137 by Andy Warhol is a striking print from Warhol’s 1975  Ladies and Gentlemen portfolio. For the Ladies and Gentleman series, Warhol took hundreds of polaroids of drag queens and transgender women who he and his associates recruited. Their only instructions were to dress up however they wanted to and to strike interesting poses for the camera.

Warhol commented on the struggles of transgender women in his 1977 book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). “I know that the people who think they’re working the hardest are the men who are trying to be women” he said. “They do double-time. They do all the double things: they think about shaving and not shaving, of primping and not primping, of buying men’s clothes and women’s clothes. I guess it’s interesting to try to be another sex, but it can be exciting to just be your own sex.” In typical Warholian fashion, it was the little, everyday things and the way that transgender women approached them that intrigued him the most. And, of course, their wild sense for fashion and a good time.

Ladies and Gentleman 137 features a drag queen named Broadway. Little is known of her, other than that she signed her portraits herself (The Andy Warhol Foundation still seeks to uncover the unknown drag queens’ stories). In the portrait, Broadway’s tilted stare and hand gesture are both suggestive and elusive. Warhol plays off of this energy, using four different color blots: purple and blue for her hair, yellow and green for her clothing, and brown for her skin. The colors roughly cover the areas of the contours of the actual photograph, but they also drift out into space like an optical illusion, much like the manner of Broadway’s sideways glance.

Notable gay rights activists who appear in the series include Wilhelmina Ross and Marsha P Johnson, from Ladies and Gentlemen 136, and 133, respectively. Other prints, like Ladies and Gentlemen 137 represent an authentic look into the heartbeat of the queer community of the time. They were all anonymously chosen, and Warhol never formally introduced himself to them.

For this portfolio, Warhol’s associates Ronnie Cutrone, an assisstant and printer, and Bob Colacello, editor for Interview magazine, scouted for models. They would ask people to pose “for a friend” for $50 dollars, and bring them back to the Factory the next day. They found these characters at the Gilded Grape, a hole in the wall disco joint that served the predominantly Black and Latinx queer community, as well as all other marginalized folks. Pimps, prostitutes, and all kinds of pleasure-seekers frequented the Gilded Grape, making it a quintessential window into the underworld of 1970s New York. According to some who frequented the club, the atmosphere comprised both a warmth and acceptance as well as more dangerous emotions and desires. 

Luciano Anselmino, an Italian art dealer and protege of Alexander Iolas, suggested the idea for Ladies and Gentlemen to Warhol. He originally wanted him to do a series on more prominent trans individuals who successfully passed as women in society. Later, however, he suggested that Warhol do a work on “crossdressers” who did not pass as well, perhaps somewhat facetiously. Warhol seized on the idea earnestly and wholeheartedly nonetheless, as was his style. Ladies and Gentlemen 137 is doubtlessly a classic Warhol creation. Using Warhol’s own photography and signature design techniques, the series echoes monumental works like Mick Jagger, Reigning Queensand Muhammad Ali

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