Andy Warhol – Ladies and Gentlemen II.137 (1975)

Created in 1975, Andy Warhol’s Ladies and Gentlemen series stands as one of the most consequential bodies of portraiture in his oeuvre, shifting the Pop lexicon toward questions of identity, gender performance, and the visibility of queer communities in 1970s New York. Conceived at the suggestion of Italian gallerist Luciano Anselmino, the project drew its sitters from the city’s underground drag and transgender scene—recruited by Bob Colacello of Interview and Warhol assistant Ronnie Cutrone—many encountered at the Gilded Grape, a club central to Black and Latinx queer nightlife of the period. Warhol photographed them with his Polaroid Big Shot, then translated those images into serial, color-driven icons that operate simultaneously as portraits and as cultural documents.

Ladies and Gentlemen II.137 captures “Broadway,” a magnetic presence rendered through Warhol’s signature orchestration of layered color: electric violets and blues through the hair, acidic yellows and greens across the garment, and warm brown tonalities for the skin. The slight tilt of the pose, the enigmatic gaze, and the carefully held gesture convey both theatrical command and exposed humanity—an image that transcends surface spectacle to assert individuality. Warhol himself wrote of the intensity involved in “trying to be another sex,” a remark that underscores the artist’s fascination with transformation and self-fashioning, and helps situate the series as both empathetic record and incisive commentary on representation.

Offered here is a signed and numbered example, 67 from the edition of 125, dated ’75 in pencil on the verso—an authentication-critical feature for collectors. With institutional recognition and enduring market attention toward Warhol’s portrait prints, Ladies and Gentlemen has become increasingly regarded as museum-grade material: historically specific yet broadly resonant, and among the artist’s most socially legible series. The project’s early European presentation—famously including a landmark showing at Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara—further reinforces its cross-cultural significance, positioning this sheet as a compelling acquisition at the intersection of Pop art, contemporary social history, and blue-chip print collecting.