Andy Warhol: Ladies and Gentlemen

Andy Warhol: Ladies and Gentlemen at Skarstedt Gallery in New York, NY. "...This exhibition is comprised of nineteen paintings and seven drawings and represents some of the most interesting portraits Warhol created while also depicting Warhol’s acute awareness of the modernizing and liberalizing world around him.
Unlike the portraits commissioned by socialites and celebrities, Warhol paid these sitters to pose in front of his camera. In a statement made by Vincent Freemont about the sitters he says, 'Bob Colacello found most of them at a club called the Gilded Grape. After the photo session, I would hand the subjects a model release and a check and send them over to the bank.' The cross-dressers were invited to pose and dress as they wished while Warhol took their portraits with his Polaroid Big Shot camera, the same process he used with the Hollywood starlets and socialites. The photographs were then sent to a commercial silkscreen shop where they were transferred onto the silk or silk-like fabric and then returned to Warhol for printing. These paintings are glamorous and feminine, and mimic the celebrity status of his other portraits."