The Material Girl’s earliest known signed contract as 20-year-old Madonna Ciccone poses for explosive photos published by Playboy in 1985
Madonna’s earliest known contract, signed “Madonna Ciccone,” dated from her nude modeling session on February 12, 1979, and co-signed/consigned by the photographer Martin HM Schreiber, hits the auction block. Like her idol Marilyn Monroe, who posed nude for Tom Kelley in 1949 and then saw those “Golden Dreams” photos grace Playboy’s 1954 debut issue, Madonna too had pre-fame nudes surface in Playboy when she was already a star and sex icon. At the time, Madonna was a 20-year-old dancer and drummer who’d recently arrived in New York City from Michigan. She studied at Pearl Lang’s studio. She worked at Dunkin’ Donuts in Times Square and drummed in the New Wave scene and she got paid to “life model.”
As Madonna herself described the period in a 2013 essay, she was “trying to be a professional dancer, paying my rent by posing nude for art classes, staring at people staring at me naked.” She sat twice for Schreiber’s photography class and even stayed in his apartment with him for several days. But it wasn’t until 1985 when Madonna was world famous and hit the cover of Time Magazine, that Schreiber publicly shared her early nudes in the September issue of Playboy. If the Internet had existed then, she would’ve broken it. Playboy’s cover headline said it all: “MADONNA NUDE: Unlike a Virgin…For the Very First Time.”
The contract has been previously documented in Schreiber’s published books and exhibitions. His Letter of Provenance reads, ”I am the photographer who took the nude photos of Madonna in my studio on the 12th of February 1979 in my loft on 22nd street in Manhattan. Madonna was a model for my nude photography class which I taught for the New School/Parsons. I paid her $30 for her session of less than 3 hours. I had her sign a model release which was the same model release Playboy used. The document is originally signed by herself and me on the date of her session in front of my class of 15 students. The model release is also printed in all the books which were published of my nudes of Madonna titled ‘Madonna Nudes 1979.'”
Schreiber is personally selling the contract through Goldin, which is available for bidding through Saturday, August 17th. The document will be accompanied by PSA/DNA authentication and various promo materials related to Schreiber’s body of work.
