That time Madonna auctioned her Mercedes Benz to fund a Philadelphia art exhibit

“Can a woman who wears spiky metal underwear be a serious patron of the arts?” asked former Inquirer art critic Edward J. Sozanski in 1995.

The woman in question was Madonna, who had just auctioned off her flashy white Mercedes Benz convertible, which appeared in her 1992 music video for “Deeper and Deeper,” to help pay for a major exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The $56,350 donation made her the prime sponsor of the first retrospective of Italian American photographer Tina Modotti — ahead of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Modotti, who moved to Mexico in 1922, was renowned for her portraits of working class Mexicans. She lived a fascinating life as a political radical who was framed and acquitted for the murder of a lover, Julio Antonio Mella, who was a founder of the Cuban Communist Party. She was also somehow implicated in the assassination attempt of the Mexican president, Pascual Ortiz Rubio, prompting her removal from the country.

The artist, a close friend of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, was considered “the best-known unknown photographer of the twentieth century,” according to the 1995 exhibit’s guest curator, Sarah M. Lowe.

“Modotti isn’t a major 20th-century photographer, but she’s a significant one,” wrote Sozanski. “She developed a distinctive vision that, more than 50 years after her death, remains vital and worthy of serious consideration. And the Philadelphia Museum of Art is doing just that.”

The effort was thanks in large part to Madonna, who heard of Modotti’s photography after she began collecting Kahlo’s work, and became a major fan. Sozanski reported that the PMA reached out to the entertainer to enlist her participation in the exhibit and then-director Anne d’Harnoncourt called her “a natural sponsor for an exhibition that introduces this artist to a broad public.”

“Tina Modotti was a rock star herself,” said Peter Barberie, the Brodsky Curator of Photographs at the museum’s Alfred Stieglitz Center. “The museum is certainly very proud of the exhibit.”

The exhibit, “Tina Modotti: Photographs,” showcased 118 images gathered from 52 collectors from as far as Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands — though Madonna wasn’t one of them. It ran at PMA before stopping at Houston and San Francisco.

The museum still has some Modotti works from the exhibit in storage to protect the images from sunlight damage. Another special shot in the museum’s photography collection comes from photographer Amy Arbus: her 1983 portrait of Madonna in New York City.

Madonna hasn’t funded another Philadelphia art exhibit since then, but she is back in town tonight, bringing her “Celebrations Tour” to the Wells Fargo Center.