Rare early photos of Madonna on display in Times Square

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posted Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at 6:14 PM EDT

 
 

If you ever wondered what the Material Girl looked like before she acquired all her fancy, material things, then you're going to love a new photography show opening in New York City tomorrow. Called "MADONNA: A Transformational Exhibition," the exhibition will be on display at the W Hotel in Times Square. It features rare, early images of Madonna by famed photographers Richard Corman and George DuBose. (The photo to the right was shot by Corman in 1982.)

The show is being curated by Rock Paper Photo and you can purchase many of these revealing photos of "Madge" when she was just a wild, artsy girl with a keen fashion sense on New York City's Lower East Side at the site's online gallery.

"Her makeup was beautiful–beautiful red mouth, beautiful smokey eyes–it’s the same thing I would do on a fashion shoot today. The roots in her hair are so today," Corman told Fashionista in an interview about the photos. "The reason why I’m showing them for the first time globally is because I think they’re relevant today. I think this is what’s happening today from a fashion and style sensibility. I’m not interested in bringing back old pictures and paying homage to madonna; I’m really paying homage to a period in time where there was this hysterical, creative spirit going on in new york, and I believe it’s happening today, too. It’s all of her styling."

 
Photo by Richard Corman

In the interview, Corman notes that Madonna got her early start as a pop star just by singing and dancing with local kids on the roof of her apartment building.

"Every day she would run up to the roof with [those kids] and bring her boombox and dance and sing with them. They knew she was this young singer that was running around town singing everywhere she could because she was so vigilant and so fierce in her attitude to get out there. She adored these kids and they adored her. She really was the pied piper of the Lower East Side."

See more early Madonna photos from the show here.

(Via Fashionista)