LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
(SUBTITLE) NEW YORK CITY’S DRAG COMMUNITY THROUGH ANDY’S LENS
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Ladies and Gentlemen (Iris), 1976, Polaroid, 4.25” x 3.75” $15,000
ANDY WARHOL AND THE DRAG QUEEN CULTURE OF NEW YORK CITY (SUBTITLE)
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In 1975, Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello strolled into The Gilded Grape, a dive nightclub in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, with one question. He approached a group of glamorous drag queens, asking them if they’d be willing to model for “a friend” for $50. That friend happened to be Andy Warhol, who later photographed the queens just like any of his other iconic muses—at a three-fourths angle with his Polaroid camera. Of these Polaroids, Warhol chose 10 photographs for his silkscreen series “Ladies and Gentlemen,” which portray the queens as confident, coy, and vulnerable. Fascinated by the queens’ exhibitionism and meticulous grooming, Warhol once mused, “They do all the 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.”
E.M.
"Even though Andy's portrait sittings were relatively short in the classic sense, I think most people came away from the sittings interested in Andy, the artist. He made it exciting and special to pose for him. When Andy was working on a series of paintings entitled "Ladies and Gentlemen," a number of transvestites were invited up to the studio to be photographed. Bob Colacello found most of them at a club called The Gilded Grape. After the photo session, I would hand the subjects a check and send them over to the bank. Usually they would not have any identification, so the bank would call me and ask if I knew a Helen or a Harry Morales! I do not remember if they knew who Andy was, but the photo sessions were wonderful for every one of them. They were able to do their favorite poses and act glamorous for Andy's camera."
- Vincent Fremont
WILHELMINA ROSS
In the mid-1970's Andy Warhol was arguably in a creative lull. He had produced countless portrait paintings of celebrities, politicians and society characters. Many of these works came about from commissions (rather than inspiration).
Subverting his typical clientele, Warhol sent his sidekick/studio manager Bob Colacello to the roughest, seediest part of NYC to recruit some fresh subjects. Colacello procured Drag Queens from a bar called "The Gilded Grape" at the corner of 8th Avenue and 45th Street. The queens were paid $50 each to have Warhol take polaroid portraits of them.
Using a similar technique as his celebrity portraits, Warhol used the polaroids to first made silkscreen paintings and later that year a series of prints with his favorite images.