Deborah Harry, Boston, 1978

ROBERTA BAYLEY (B. 1950)
Debbie Harry, Boston, 1978
double signed, titled, numbered A.P. and dated 'Deborah Harry Boston 1978 A.P. Roberta Bayley' (on the reverse)
cibachrome print
19 × 23 3/8 inches
executed in 1978.
this work is one of three artists proofs created.

One of three artist's proofs, double-signed, titled and dated by Bayley on the reverse — a cibachrome print of an enlarged polaroid of Deborah Harry  photographed by Roberta Bayley in Boston in 1978, the year Blondie released Parallel Lines and the band crossed from CBGB cult act into one of the most-watched musical groups in the world. Bayley had been documenting Harry since the earliest Blondie days at CBGB, where Bayley worked the door and Blondie were among the small circle of bands building the New York scene from inside its smallest rooms.

The image — a close-up portrait of Harry with blonde hair, blue eye-shadow and red lips, captioned 'Debbie Harry Boston 1978' in Bayley's hand — captures her on the road during the period in which "Heart of Glass" was about to redraw the boundaries between punk, disco and pop permanently. The image served as the cover of Bayley's book Blondie Unseen 1976–1980, published by Plexus, her photographic record of the band from CBGB through their breakout years.