Andy WARHOL - Ladies and Gentlemen (FS II.32)

Title: Ladies and Gentlemen 132
Medium: Screenprint on Arches Paper
Year: 1975
Size: 43 1/3” x 28 ½”
Edition: Edition of 250. Signed, numbered, and dated '75 on verso. Portfolio of 10

Andy Warhol created Ladies and Gentlemen 132 as part of his Ladies and Gentleman portfolio. This portfolio features figures that represented the socio-political issues that surrounded cross-dressers. Ladies and Gentlemen 132 depicts a photo portrait that is overlaid with blocks of purple, blue, green, and pink. Warhol created this portfolio by taking the cross-dresser’s portrait with a Polaroid Big Shot camera and then cropping and transferring the image onto silkscreen to be reproduced. This is the same process he used for many of his portraits of celebrities and famous figures. Warhol wanted the character of the cross-dresser to be conveyed in the image and thus told them to dress and pose however they wished. Warhol used subjects that were not famous but rather shows the glamorous and eccentric nature of cross-dressing men and women. Warhol found all of his subjects from a New York City nightclub called The Gilded Grape. This portfolio is favored among Andy Warhol collectors because of the simplicity of the prints but how they convey the glamor and feelings of its subjects.