NEW YORK, NY.- On January 8th Martin Lawrence Galleries New York will present a selection of rare works from their extensive Andy Warhol collection. The exhibition, spanning across their two floor gallery space in SoHo, will include nearly a dozen unique works on paper, an incredibly rare handmade collage of Mick Jagger, a black Marilyn Monroe as well as the complete 8 piece Camouflage suite from 1987. 

"I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, “Well, what do you love most?”  That’s how I started painting money."  - Andy Warhol

Martin Lawrence Galleries has likely the largest private holding of Warhol prints of any gallery, and produced the artist's famous Campbell's Soup Box series in 1984.  The company’s collection is set apart by it's focus on Warhol's unique prints, notably the Trial Proofs, which were created for just a short number of years before the artist's untimely death in 1987. During the 1980s Warhol produced unique color variations of the famous multiple prints he was creating, realizing his collectors sought to own things that no one else had. In some cases he would print a subject in only unique variations (no multiples/regular edition) such as the $(9) prints where no two of the prints where ever the same. Four of those unique $(9)’s are owned by Martin Lawrence Galleries and two of these will be prominently displayed in the exhibition.

Other highlights include an exemplar unique Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) from 1983. With a solid gold metallic face, rose bud lips and rainbow rolling (where the colors in the line work shift as they progress across the page) she is likely the finest variation of this work ever to have been displayed in the company's 40 year history.  The Ingrid Bergman suite is also the only series known to have a book dedicated solely to the best of the trial proofs Warhol created of the image and the one exhibited is featured within.

On display as well will be works from Andy Warhol’s Cowboys & Indians suite, an homage to the epic version of Western history. Most of the images within the ten-piece suite are of actual historical figures (Sitting Bull, Geronimo, General Custer, Teddy Roosevelt etc) aside from John Wayne who Warhol chose to cap the suite as the mythical figure of the American Cowboy. His decision was typical of his sharp sense of humor and ironic lean. In the show, facing the unique John Wayne, is a unique trial-proof of Annie Oakley, one the globally ! dominant gun slinger at 4 foot ten inches tall, where the other near twice her size,  merely played one ‘in the movies', yet of course both cultural heroes and icons of The West.

The entire vibrant Camouflage suite will provide the visual focal point of the exhibit.  Late in his life Warhol began experimenting with camouflage, taken by it's supposed ability to conceal. In typical Warhol fashion he changed the dynamic of the pattern, rendering it in bright luminous colors to defy its original intention.  As opposed to offering concealment the works cry out for attention and when displayed in their entirety create an eye popping show. An ironic Pop masterpiece.