If you’ve ever thumbed through a music magazine or gazed at a poster of a legendary rock star, the chances are good you were looking at the work of Bob Gruen. From his iconic portraits of John Lennon in New York to his seminal studies of the punk explosion of the late 1970s, the photographer has been at the forefront of capturing our culture heroes on camera for over half a century. And now the public gets to see the proof up close via a retrospective exhibit of his absolutely electric rock photography at Toronto’s Liss Gallery.
The show will spotlight the keen eye for the moment Gruen has brought to some of the most memorable images in pop history. He’s the visionary who took the photo of Lennon flashing a peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty in 1974, along with its equally famous companion picture of the artist with his arms folded across a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo “New York City.” As the Liss Gallery retrospective will make clear, Gruen has brought that instinct for the instantly timeless to images of an entire firmament of rock’s greatest, immortalizing them at crucial junctures when their talent and their significance collided in a way only he could do justice.
Gruen’s tenure with Lennon is the most widely renowned instalment in his long and illustrious career. As the personal photographer to John and Yoko Ono, he chronicled their doings at a time when the expatriate Englishman was making a new life for himself in his adopted city across the pond — and fighting the efforts of the presidential administration to have him ejected from the country.
But Gruen’s photojournalistic activity back then wasn’t restricted to hanging around the Lennons. He was an active and essential observer of the punk and new wave scene at downtown hotspots like CBGB, shooting nascent stars like The Ramones, Blondie, The New York Dolls and Patti Smith Group. British upstarts The Clash and The Sex Pistols caught his eye as well. (His photo Sid Vicious with Hot Dog is now in the collection of London’s National Portrait Gallery.) As chief photographer for the cutting-edge music periodical Rock Scene, he shared the pictorial evidence of that transformative movement with the world, along with equally earth-shaking photos of international rock royalty like Led Zeppelin, The Who, Tina Turner, KISS and Alice Cooper.
Gruen’s vitality and relevance have remained strong right up to the present day, as he’s filled out his portfolio with dynamic shots of Green Day, AC/DC, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne and Ryan Adams. And the art world has taken due notice: His works have been exhibited in some of the most prestigious venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Grand Palais éphémère in Paris and the Museu da Imagem e do Som in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Over the years, Gruen has brought his vision to bookshelves with photo collections devoted specifically to The New York Dolls, The Rolling Stones, Lennon and others. His autobiography, Right Place, Right Time: Diary Of A Rock & Roll Photographer was published in 2020. In addition, he revisited the heyday of The New York Dolls in two video documentaries, and he himself was the subject of Rock & Roll Exposed — The Photography of Bob Gruen, a filmed tribute that included testimonials from many of the music luminaries who have been fortunate enough to be seen through his lens.
“Gruen is THE world’s best rock and roll photographer,” Publishers Weekly once declared. Come to the Liss Gallery and find out for yourself just how right they were. The show runs from Sept. 3 to Oct. 5, 2024. The gallery is located at 112 Cumberland St. in Toronto. For more information or to RSVP, call (416) 787-9872 or email info@lissgallery.com.
