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‘The Birth Of The Myth:’ 50 Vintage 1980s Photos Of Madonna On Show In Spain

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 00:37 PST, Feb 20, 2016

An exhibition of iconic 1980s photos of the Queen of Pop, Madonna is currently ongoing in Malaga – the first of its kind in Spain and the second showing worldwide.

The exhibition is being held at La Termica in Malaga city in the south of Spain and is being curated by Mario Martin Pareja and Ono. On show are 50 classic and stunning images of the Queen of Pop, taken in the early 80s by North American photographers Peter Cunningham, George DuBose and Deborah Feingold.

It was back in 1982 that Canadian photographer Peter Cunningham – at that time working in a studio in New York – received a call from Liz Rosenberg, a friend who worked at Warner Records. Rosenberg told him he had to organize a photo shoot with one of her new clients, a girl by the name of Madonna. When Rosenberg said Madonna would be “the new Marilyn Monroe,” Cunningham reportedly laughed.

According to L’Oeil de la Photo (The Eye of Photography), on the day of the photo shoot in Soho, Madonna reportedly turned up alone and readied her costumes and applied her makeup herself, with no assistance. The Queen of Pop apparently joked and played in front of the camera, changing costumes to adopt different roles for the camera.

Reportedly the photo shoot took over six hours and was conducted both in a studio and in the streets of Soho. When outside, Madonna apparently ran and jumped in the streets and even posed on the steps of a church with her trousers unzipped. Outside the church she also pretended to be crucified on a church fence, as can be seen in the image below.

At the time of the photo shoot Cunningham never imagined that Madonna would go on to become such a big artist and reportedly for a while the roll of film was lost, but now the iconic images are being exhibited for the first time in Spain and apparently the second time worldwide.

When it comes to photographer George DuBose, he was reportedly hired a few months before in 1981 by Camille Barbone of Empire Management. His job was to shoot a new band by the name of The Breakfast Club at Uncle Sam’s Blues, a club in Long Island.

Reportedly, Barbone told DuBose to focus on the singer Madonna. DuBose apparently met the Queen of Pop in another bar, The Danceteria that same night, where Madonna was singing over the music playing in the bar and dancing with friends. It was reportedly in The Danceteria that Madonna caught the eye of music producers in the United States and her career took off a few months later.

Reportedly, photographer Deborah Feingold’s contribution to “The Birth of a Myth” was taken in a photo shoot for Star Hits magazine. Apparently the photo shoot only took 20 minutes and was carried out in Feingold’s own apartment in the Village, which she had turned into a photo studio.

There is little information available about that particular photo shoot but reportedly Madonna was already made up and ready for the shoot on arrival and apparently had “so much charisma.”

For anyone wishing to view the exhibition, it started on January 22 this year and will run until May 15th at La Termica in the Avenida de los Guindos, 48 in Malaga, Spain.

[Madonna in July 1990 by AP Photo/Jimmy Rubio]

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