Bruce Gilden was born in Brooklyn, New York and attended Penn State University where he soon became restless and bored studying sociology. Seeing the Antonioni film Blow Up inspired him to buy his first camera. Though he took some night classes at the School of Visual Arts in New York, his photography is basically self-taught.

When he was a child Gilden spent hours gazing through his bedroom window studying the activity on the street below. His fascination for street life continued and led him to his first long-term personal projects photographing in Coney Island and then to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Gilden, who has done extended projects on New York, Haiti, France, Ireland, India and Japan, started exhibiting as early as 1971 and has since shown his work widely in museums and galleries all over the world. The strong dynamic forms and graphic quality of his images and his in-the-face theatrical style distinguish Gilden’s original vision.

Gilden has received numerous grants and awards for his work, including three National Endowments for the Arts fellowships (1980, 1984 and 1992), New York State Foundation for the Arts Grant (1979, 1992 and 2000), the European Award for Photography (1996) and a Japan Foundation Fellowship (1999).

See Bruce Gilden’s photographs looking at climate change and urban life.