Bid for this photograph of Keith Haring by famed photographer Allan Tannenbaum. World renowned artist Keith Haring prepares his paints in his studio, NYC, 1982.

Born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1945, Allan Tannenbaum has been photographing since the 1960s. He received a B.A. in Art from Rutgers University in 1967, where he photographed for The Targum – the campus newspaper – and made films for his art courses. He made films as a graduate student at San Francisco State College and as an independent filmmaker in New York. After a stint as a seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine, he taught photography and filmmaking at the Livingston College branch of Rutgers University from 1970 until 1972. Gravitating to the nascent art scene in the SoHo district of Manhattan, Tannenbaum worked as a taxi driver and bartender while looking for work as a photographer. When the SoHo Weekly News commenced publication in 1973, Tannenbaum became the Photo Editor and Chief Photographer. The newspaper started out as an eight-page free paper, but soon became a popular newsstand seller that rivaled the established Village Voice. Tannenbaum relentlessly covered the art world, music scene, politics, show business, and nightlife. This lasted until 1982 when the SoHo News folded. The high point of this period was photographing John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the paper -- the low point was the murder of John Lennon 10 days later.  

While working for the SoHo News, Tannenbaum also freelanced for magazines such as Newsweek and New York Magazine. He also syndicated his SoHo News photos to newspapers, magazines, and photo agencies. Upon the demise of the SoHo News, Tannenbaum joined the renowned Sygma Photo News as a Staff Photographer. His work has appeared in many photo books and exhibitions, as well as appearing regularly in NEWSWEEK, TIME, LIFE, ROLLING STONE, PARIS MATCH, and STERN. His photographs have graced the covers of TIME three times, and NEWSWEEK five times.

 After covering news and features from America to Asia to Africa for almost twenty years as a Sygma photojournalist, Allan Tannenbaum suddenly found himself without an agency when Sygma was bought and absorbed into a large corporation. Ironically, Tannenbaum got the biggest and most dangerous story of his career just six blocks from his home – the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Tannenbaum photographed the explosion of the second plane and Ground Zero between tower collapses. He was covered in dust and debris when the first tower collapsed, but stayed at the site to keep working. His photographs of this terrible event have been published all over the world and have been in photography exhibitions as well.

Tannenbaum lives with his wife Debora in Manhattan.