MADONNA: GETTING NAKED AS ART

Nude photographs of pop icon Madonna taken before she became a worldwide star are set to go on display at an exhibition in London today.Madonna posed for the black and whites at the age of 20, when she was modelling in New York to pay her way through dancing school and seeking her first big break in the music business.She was paid just $30 in 1979--worth about $90 today--for the intimate pictures, which include her confidently lounging nude on a chair for New Yorkbased photographer Martin Schreiber.After she became a star, Schreiber sold the photographs, which he took while teaching a photography course, to Playboy magazine which published them in 1985--three years after her first single Everybody came out."Basically she was a model. She was hired for this photo session by Martin who was teaching photography to his students. She was no one then," said exhibition organizer Jamie Mc-Cartney, a London gallery owner.

Vancouver Sun
July 2 2009