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FOREWORD Photography and art! That’s a big subject, about which I am certain everybody will have diverse opinions. However, there are basic elements that need to be considered especially when we are talking about the nude in photography.

lasting images: Bill Brandt, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Josef Koudelka, Helmut Newton, Lucien Clergue, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Uwe Ommer and Jeanloup Sief, just to name a few. It is a vast subject open to a multitude of interpretations. Partially, in my humble opinion, it is also about our diffculty with being naked, which is how we are born. It is natural, but because of bias, and mostly due to the rules of certain religions, it is often taboo and not accepted. There are many people today who still find it difficult to be naked or even to look upon someone who is naked. It is the last frontier that we have still to conquer. Naked, nude and sex. It’s odd that when we were tribal we were moslty naked but with the advent of ‘civilized’ society we completely covered up. And there the problem begins.

I have been photographing nudes for almost 50 years. I also taught a course on photographing the nude and have done many workshops on the subject. Basically one has to set aside the idea that nudity or being naked is about sex. It isn’t, unless it is explicit pornography. Outside of that it is about glorifying the naked body as well as demystifying it. The Greeks did it in their statuary, as have countless painters in the last five centuries. With the advent of the camera and photography the field changed somewhat, making it easy for anyone with a camera to photograph nudes. There are millions of images floating around the world on the subject of the female nude. Many of them are repetitive and tend to lean towards the sexuality of a woman’s body in whole or in part.

To quote a great art collector friend of mine: ‘Let art be a source of energy and approach it without any preconceived ideas.’ Martin HM Schreiber Les Menus September 2016

However, there are a few photographers who truly do homage to the female form and at the same time create

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INTRODUCTION In 1985, while working on my third book, I saw Madonna’s face on the cover of Interview magazine. I had no idea of her stardom and was amazed and delighted for her. I also distinctly remember asking my then girlfriend if she thought anyone would be interested in my images of Madonna. She said ‘No.’

I was a struggling young photographer in my second year of teaching a course entitled Photographing the Nude at the New School/Parsons in New York City. The school supplied the models. On 12 February 1979, a quiet, shy young woman walked in to my studio for the first time, the nude model for my photography class that evening. She said she was a dancer. Her name was Madonna Ciccone.

In September 1985, Playboy magazine published four of my photographs of Madonna. They were nude studies, devoid of any prurient interests, having nothing to do with sex or exploitation, and that is how they should be viewed, along with their sister shots in this book.

Madonna was not only a welcome relief from the average, lumpy but sweet art class model, she was also one of the loveliest models I ever photographed.

This book is a celebration of the human form, a dedication to an innocent, determined young woman and to all figure models. It is a tribute to Madonna and anyone like her who aspires and, through ambition, hard work and perseverance, achieves their goal.

We spent a short time together and then parted ways. She was seeking her future and had to keep moving. At the time, I don’t recall her saying anything about singing, that came later. A few years passed and I saw her riding a bicycle down Houston Street in New York and I waved. She stopped and we exchanged hellos. That was the last time I spoke to her.

Martin HM Schreiber Les Menus, France

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MADONNA MODEL RELEASE 1979

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MARTIN HUGO MAXIMILIAN SCHREIBER Martin HM Schreiber (1946) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and immigrated to the United States in 1952. In 1965 Martin joined the US Army where he went to Photo Lab School. This was the beginning of his career and education. Taking up photography full time after the service, he went on to teach and lecture at two prestigious institutions: The School of Visual Arts and The New School/Parsons, both in New York City. Returning to his European roots, Schreiber presently resides in France, outside of Paris. His works have been published internationally in every major magazine and newspaper and have been the subject of more than eighty group and solo exhibitions. His works are featured in twenty published books.

ISBN: 978-1-85149-849-9

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