When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
For sale is an Incredible 1987 Madonna PSA Type 1 Original Photo! This dramatic 1987 photograph captures Madonna performing live in Tokyo during her Who’s That Girl World Tour, photographed by Kevin Mazur. Standing in front of the illuminated staircase that formed part of the elaborate stage production, Madonna performs with microphone in hand, striking a commanding pose beneath the stage lights. The stark black-and-white composition emphasizes her movement and silhouette, capturing the theatrical combination of music, choreography, costume and attitude that had become central to Madonna’s live performances by the late 1980s.
The Who’s That Girl World Tour was Madonna’s first true world tour and began in Japan in June 1987, with shows in Osaka followed by performances at Tokyo’s Korakuen Stadium before the tour continued to North America and Europe. Tokyo hosted multiple stadium performances in June, with a set built around major songs including “Open Your Heart,” “Lucky Star,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Live to Tell,” “Into the Groove,” “La Isla Bonita,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Holiday.” The Japanese dates therefore captured Madonna at the very beginning of an ambitious international tour, during a period when she had already become one of the defining figures in global pop culture.
This shot is 5.5x7in and is Authenticated and Encapsulated by PSA as a Type 1 Original Photo! There is an especially strong sense of performance in this image: Madonna alone at center stage, framed by the staircase behind her, singing and moving with the confidence that had become inseparable from her public image. The 1987 Who’s That Girl Tour represented a major expansion in the scale of her live career, and its opening run in Japan helped introduce that spectacle to an international stadium audience. This photograph preserves Madonna not simply as a portrait subject, but exactly where much of her influence was being established—in front of a live audience, fully immersed in the performance.
