Madonna lots at Playboy at 50 sale
As Madonna Tribe reported last July, Christie’s celebrates Playboy Magazine’s 50th anniversary with and exciting auction of cartoons, illustrations, manuscripts, memorabilia, paintings and photographs from the archives of Playboy Enterprises.
Two Madonna photographs are part of this sale.
The first one is a picture from 1979/1980 by Lee Friedlander who photographed Madonna years before her stardom, while she was struggling to form a band and supporting herself as a nude model. These photographs, produced in 1980, appeared in the September 1985 issue along with a second session with Martin H. Schreiber, who hired Madonna in 1979 to pose for his “Photographing the Nude” course at the New School in New York.
Not unlike Tom Kelley‘s early photograph of the young Marilyn, these nudes, while not innocent, suggest an intensity in Madonna that would later be seen in her countless hits and her status as an icon from the 1980s onwards. Lee Friedlander is a highly celebrated fine art photographer. Lot estimate is between 4,000 – 6,000 U.S. dollars.
The second photo is a dye transfert print of a classic Herb Ritts pose from
Desperately Seeking Susan that appeared on Playboy’s cover in 1985. Estimate: 4,000 – 6,000 U.S. dollars.
Auction date is December 17, 2004.
click on each image to enlarge
