MEET THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO TOOK THE ICONIC PHOTO OF JOHN LENNON IN A NEW YORK T-SHIRT, AND TRAVELED CROSS COUNTRY WITH IKE AND TINA TURNER

BY LAURA D.C. KOLNOSKI PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB GRUEN

Bob Dylan, Madonna, Kiss, Green Day, David Bowie, Elton John, and the late Elvis Presley have more than music in common. They have all been on the other end of the lens of photographer Bob Gruen. The full list, spanning 50 years, is much longer.

Gruen captured scenes at landmark concerts and clubs that gained worldwide recognition, and fill his 11 books. Creating personal relationships with his subjects is key to his success, as is being in the right place at the right time, the title of his latest book (with Dave Thompson, October 2020, Abrams Press).

Bob Gruen at Yoko Ono show at the Budokan, Tokyo. December 8, 2010. © Yuki Taira
Please contact Bob Gruen’s studio to purchase a print or license this photo. email: websitemail01@aol.com phone: 212-691-0391

“John and I felt he was sensitive,” Yoko Ono is quoted. “In those days, photographers were all so pushy and he wasn’t. His photography shows what his character is.”

After Lennon moved to New York City, Gruen took another iconic shot of the Beatle, making the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty. He became John and Yoko’s personal photographer, documenting their working and private lives.

Gruen’s long and winding road began at age five when his mother, an amateur photographer who developed her own pictures, taught him to work in a darkroom. She bought his first camera – a Brownie Hawkeye – at age 8. He took it to camp and by 11, he was selling fellow campers his photos of them. After high school, he tried college but left to travel with a rock band and his camera. When they got a recording contract, he got hired for his photographic skills. Then, “one thing led to another.”

He worked at the 1965 World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens, and took a job at Nabisco in the mailroom because the company had an in-house photography operation he hoped to join.

“It didn’t work out,” Gruen recalled. “It’s much more of an adrenaline rush to photograph the Rolling Stones than a box of cookies.” Gruen photographed the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, and Woodstock in 1969, the same year he met Ike and Tina Turner. Fortuitously, Gruen was among the first to purchase Sony’s revolutionary, albeit bulky, 1970 video camera.

“I would video the concert and play it back,” he related. “Tina liked to see the footage immediately after her shows. It helped improve their act, and helped cement my relationship with them.” Gruen’s footage of the couple was used in the 2021 HBO documentary Tina. Since its airing, collectors have been contacting Gary Lichtenstein Editions (gleditions.com) for limited silkscreen and mixed media prints of Gruen’s Tina images, along with those of Lennon.

As chief photographer for Rock Scene Magazine, Gruen toured with acts like the New York Dolls, The Clash, Ramones, The Who, Alice Cooper, and Blondie, whose singer and New Jersey resident Debbie Harry gave him a kiss one New Year’s Eve in Scotland.

“You can’t take a bad picture of her,” mused Gruen, adding that he enjoyed working with Lennon because, “he was comfortable in front of the camera.” Gruen utilized and honed his professional skills to overcome the job’s challenges.

“The light keeps changing, the people on stage keep moving around, and the audience paid to be in your way,” he laughed. “After the concert and the after party, the band goes to bed and I go to the darkroom.”

Right Place, Right Time is Gruen’s first written account of his career. His reminiscences include a 1989 trip to a Russian music festival featuring Jersey’s own Bon Jovi along with Ozzy Osbourne and Mötley Crüe. The YouTube video of the book’s release party is introduced by Sean Lennon.

Gruen supports charities including Why Hunger and Her Justice, and received the first John Lennon Real Love Award in 2014. In addition to a Society of Photographers Outstanding Achievement Award, he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2010. He often speaks at colleges, museums, and libraries, and his photos have been acquired for the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery and Seattle’s the Experience Music Project. His works can be found in galleries worldwide.

Pre-pandemic, Gruen traveled for exhibitions of his works across America and South America, Europe, Liverpool, and Korea. In New Jersey, the artist has exhibited at Morristown’s Morris Museum and Art 629 gallery in Asbury Park, plus in Cuba twice, in 2001 and 2018.

“I stayed friendly with the gallery owner and returned years later,” Gruen recalled. “I had a chance to see the difference during those years. The first time, the Russians had just left and it was more depressed. In 2018, in the wake of President Obama’s loosening of restrictions, we saw significant new builds and ongoing construction. We enjoyed great food, people, music, and a lively arts scene.”

“The serendipity of my life really was being in the right place at the right time, and then doing the right thing to take advantage of that situation,” said Gruen. He hopes to travel to Majorca, Spain in June for a music festival featuring his work.

“An artist doesn’t get to retire,” he added. “I’m already doing the creative things most people wait for retirement to do.”

BOB GRUEN bobgruen.com
55 E Main St. • Holmdel, NJ 07733
732-444-1373