Charles Gaines received his BA from Jersey City State University and his MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has had over 60 one-person shows and several hundred group exhibitions in the US and Europe. He was included in the Venice Biennale (2007), the Triennale der Photographie, Hamburg (1999 ) and Esslingen (2004), and the Whitney Biennial (1975). He is represented by Susanne Veilmetter Los Angeles Projects; Kent Gallery, New York; Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris; Brigitte March Gallery, Stuttgart. He is in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art in New York; Whitney Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), Studio Museum, New York; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego & La Jolla, Calif.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA., Lentos Museum, Linz, Austria; Galerie der Stadt Esslingen, Esslingen, Germany; Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany, Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany. Awards include American Academy of the Arts Purchase Award (2009); United States Artist Fellowship Grant (2007); Norton Family Foundation grant (2007); the Adoline Kent Award (2001), National Endowment for the Arts (1997).