About the artist:

Bob Gruen is an American author and photographer known for his rock and roll photographs. By the mid 1970s, Gruen was already regarded as one of the foremost photographers in music working with major artist such as John Lennon, Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, and Kiss. He also covered emerging new wave and punk rock bands, including the New York Dolls, the Clash, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and Blondie. Gruen has also appeared in films.

Gruen was born and raised in New York. After he dropped out of college and quit his job in a photo booth at the New York World's Fair in Queens, he attended the 1965 Newport Folk Festival and took photographs of Bob Dylan performing.

Gruen credits Ike Turner with starting his career. He first saw Ike & Tina Turner perform at Madison Square Garden during the Rolling Stones' American tour in 1969. In 1970, Gruen took photographs of them performing at the Honka Monka nightclub in Queens. He showed Turner the photographs and was invited to photograph them in California. "Ike introduced me to the publicist for their record company who took me to parties and introduced me to more people in the music business," he said. Gruen developed a friendship with the Turners and shot the cover of their 1971 album 'Nuff Said. In 2012, Gruen released Ike & Tina On The Road: 1971–72, a documentary he and his then-wife Nadya filmed of the Turners at their home and on tour.

Gruen served as John Lennon's personal photographer during his time in New York City in 1971. Gruen is best known for his photograph of Lennon wearing a New York City T-shirt. Other notable celebrities and rock bands photographed by Gruen include the New York Dolls, the Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith Group, Sonny & Cher, Blondie, Led Zeppelin, the Who, David Bowie, Elton John, Aerosmith, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Courtney Love, and Green Day.

Since 1980, Morrison Hotel Gallery has been the primary representative for Gruen's photography. His work is included in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.

In 2008, Gruen's Rockers, a 280 photograph installation, exhibited at Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York. From December 2011 to January 2012, the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles held an exhibition of Gruen's photographs from his book Rock Seen. His photographs have been exhibited at various art galleries and museums internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, Sotheby's S/2 Gallery London, the Morris Museum in New Jersey, Shelburne Museum in Vermont.

In 2020, Gruen released his memoir Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock & Roll Photographer.