A 12-year-old kid in the Bronx unwrapped a Mamiya/Sekor 35mm camera, and the course of his life was set. Decades later, Michael Grecco has photographed Johnny Cash, Martin Scorsese and Gwen Stefani, helped shape the eerie look of The X-Files and captured Boston’s punk explosion from the front of the stage. On Saturday, November 7, the award-winning photographer and best-selling author will be at Toronto’s Liss Gallery to meet collectors, fans and fellow photographers in person.
Grecco grew up near New York City and studied filmmaking and photojournalism at Boston University’s School of Communications, where he learned from photography historian and photographer Carl Chiarenza. Still a student, he was freelancing for the Associated Press, and he later joined the Boston Herald as a staff photographer, picking up several Boston Press Photographers awards along the way.
Those Boston years put him right where the action was. Shooting for Boston Rock Magazine and the legendary rock station WBCN, Grecco documented the city’s “pivotal role in launching the punk rock explosion” of the 1970s, catching bands onstage, backstage and in your face. In 2020, Abrams Books collected those photos in ‘Punk, Post Punk, New Wave: Onstage, Backstage, In Your Face,’ covering 1978 through 1991 and praised as a “photographic document of a critical pocket of the American punk scene in all its brash and seedy glory.” The images first went on exhibit at Photo London in 2021. They then grew into Days of Punk, a touring multimedia exhibition that premiered in early 2022 at La Térmica in Málaga, Spain, before travelling to England and the Southeast Museum of Photography.
During that same stretch, Grecco joined the Picture Group Agency in Providence, Rhode Island. His photographs began appearing in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone.
He moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s. Covering the Golden Globes, the Emmy Awards and the Academy Awards for People magazine launched his career as a celebrity portrait photographer. In 1993, Businessweek sent him around the world to photograph its “Entrepreneurs That Matter” special edition. That assignment led Fox to call him about a new show called The X-Files. Grecco helped define its unforgettable look by cross processing colour negative film in slide chemistry and shooting through special camera filters.
His portraits read like a who’s who of film, music, and comedy: Robert Duvall, Will Ferrell, Kanye West, Mel Brooks, Ben Stiller, Penélope Cruz, Jet Li, Bill Murray, Joaquin Phoenix, Steve Martin and many more. He has shot covers for Time, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, and People. In 2015 he created the first cinemagraph ever used as a broadcast television spot, a Pizza Hut commercial that aired during Billy on the Street. He has also worked as a film director and spent years shooting fine art, advertising, and fashion.
Often called the “Master of Lighting,” Grecco wrote the book on the subject, twice: ‘The Art of Portrait Photography: Creative Lighting Techniques and Strategies’ (2000) and ‘Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography’ (2006). Photo District News named him to its “Lighting Master” series in 1995. Since then, he has collected five Awards of Excellence from Communication Arts and been named a Hasselblad Master Photographer in June 2001. He won honours at the 2011 Prix de la Photographie Paris for his portraits of Steve Martin and Martin Scorsese. In 2012 he was one of eight recipients of the Professional Photographer Leadership Award from the United Nations International Photographic Council. His work sits in the permanent collections of art institutions across the United States and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions around the world.
Grecco has also been a tireless advocate for artists. He founded The American Society for Collective Rights Licensing, cofounded Titan Copyright and has spoken before Congress on artists and copyright. He served as Chairman of the Board for Advertising Photographers of America/Los Angeles, as well as its National Executive Vice President and Chairman of its Advocacy Committee. Grecco has also sat on the board of Editorial Photographers, been part of Canon’s Explorers of Light program and lectured for the Kodak Mentor program.
These days he lives in Santa Monica with his wife, photographer Elizabeth Waterman, and their two Russian blue cats, and he’s a proud dad to three grown children. When he isn’t on assignment, he’s exploring neighbourhoods and subcultures on his Triumph Bonneville or vintage Ducati. He always has a favourite camera at the ready, the same habit that kid from the Bronx picked up the day he got his first Mamiya. Liss Gallery offers worldwide sales and shipping of his work.
Event Details:
November 7 Toronto, ON @ Liss Gallery, 112 Cumberland Street (Michael Grecco in attendance)
Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Monday by appointment; closed Sunday
Inquiries: 416-787-9872