Acclaimed street photographer with a unique style, Bruce Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. He briefly studied sociology at Penn State University and after quitting college he bought his first camera in 1967 and decided to become a photographer.

Gilden went on working on his first long-term personal projects in Coney Island and New Orleans during the Mardi Gras. Since then, Gilden has continued to focus on strong characters and to apply Robert Capas’ mantra to his own work: “If the picture is not good enough, you weren’t close enough”.

Over the years he has produced long and detailed photographic projects in New York, Haiti, France , Ireland, India, Russia, Japan, England and now in America. Bruce Gilden has published 21 books of his work, most recently “Cherry Blossom” in 2021.

Bruce Gilden’s work has been exhibited widely around the world and is part of many permanent collections such as MOMA, New York, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and the Getty Museum. Most recently in 2019 his work was presented in the exhibition “This Land” at Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco, and in 2021 at NGV Triennial in Melbourne, Australia..
Bruce Gilden became a Guggenheim Fellow in 2013. He joined Magnum Photos in 1998.