Bob Gruen, one of the most celebrated photographers in the history of rock and roll, returns to Toronto’s Liss Gallery on September 26, 2026, marking his seventh appearance at the gallery since 2008. Located at 112 Cumberland Street, Liss Gallery has become a longstanding home for Gruen’s work in Canada as the Gallery has also hosted events in Kelowna, Vancouver and Montreal, and this latest visit brings the photographer back by popular demand for what promises to be another unmissable evening with a true chronicler of music history.
For more than 60 years, Gruen has documented the biggest names in rock and roll, capturing images that have become inseparable from the artists themselves. He served as John Lennon’s personal photographer during Lennon’s years in New York, creating two of the most enduring images of the former Beatle, Lennon in his New York City T shirt and Lennon making the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty. Gruen’s lens has also captured Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, David Bowie, and Kiss, alongside his extensive documentation of the emerging punk and new wave scenes surrounding the New York Dolls, the Clash, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Blondie.
Gruen’s photographs hold a permanent place in major collections around the world, including the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, and his work has been the subject of exhibitions everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Saatchi Gallery in London. His accolades include Mojo magazine’s Honours List Award for Classic Image, induction into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, and the first ever John Lennon Real Love Award, presented to him for his charitable contributions to organizations including WhyHunger and MusiCares.
The Toronto visit also celebrates Gruen’s memoir, ‘Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock & Roll Photographer,’ an account of his six-decade journey through the music world. The book takes readers into John and Yoko’s apartment, on the road with the Ike and Tina Turner band, backstage with Kiss, inside CBGB, and through a memorable exchange of steel toed boots with Sid Vicious. Kirkus Reviews called it a memoir with “a constant sense of awe,” while Publishers Weekly praised it as a “spectacular memoir.”
With decades of iconic imagery behind him and still actively photographing today’s artists, Bob Gruen’s return to Liss Gallery offers Toronto audiences a rare chance to spend an evening with a photographer who has spent his career standing at the centre of rock and roll history, camera always ready, story always at hand.