Bring inspiration into your lifestyle with Proud Galleries, we have the largest collection of authenticated, hand signed, estate embossed, limited edition & vintage photography fine art prints.
Founded in 1998, Proud Galleries features London’s finest curated collection of pop culture photographs by acclaimed cult visionaries of the sixties and seventies through to modern day fashion and contemporary music photographers.
Proud Galleries was launched in autumn 1998 by Alex Proud to bring affordable high quality photography to a mainstream market.
'I wanted to democratise the art and celebrate these amazing photographers.' says Alex Proud.
Alex had previously run a Japanese print art gallery but when he switched medium, he found his audience, and established a whole new niche on the London art scene.
'In one week I got more press coverage than I had had in a lifetime,' Alex Proud says. 'It dawned on me that I had found something no one else was doing and this concept of rock and roll photography opened up.'
Based upon a formula of exhibiting accessible shows around popular themes such as Music, Fashion, Film and Photo Reportage, Proud Galleries took the London photography industry by storm, and still holds one of the largest collections of rock n' roll photographic prints for sale in Europe."
A series of landmark shows including Destroy: The Sex Pistols, Rankin’s Nudes, The Rock n Roll Years, Underexposed, and Rebel Life: Bob Marley attracted blanket media coverage and full house, star-studded opening nights.
With up to 10,000 paying customers per show, the Proud Galleries soon became known as the most popular private photographic gallery in Europe.
In 1999, Alex Proud, in partnership with photographer Rankin, launched Vision On, a Publishing Company founded upon a parallel mission to produce affordable, high quality photographic books for the mainstream market.
Proud and Vision On worked on high profile photograph book & exhibition projects including the critically acclaimed Nudes, Snatch (book of the Guy Ritchie Film), Tory Story, Nirvana, The Art of Barbie and the Dazed & Confused Annual. Proud now holds one of the best photographic collections in the world.
Today the Proud Gallery collection features acclaimed photographers such as: Terry O’Neill, Norman Seeff, Duffy, David Stetson, Brian Aris, Adrian Boot and Marcus Klinko and Penny Smith but it also regularly hosts private exhibitions, events and previews and collaborates with art institutions and venues.
In 2021 the Gallery partnered with Hotel Montcalm East, to display an exclusive selection of photographs from the Proud Gallery and more collaborations are planned for 2022.
From the beginning, Alex Proud has always aimed to make his audience sit up and think, to reconsider photography as a fine art form and to challenge how people perceive ‘art’ and the creative process.
Alex Proud says: “Running successful photography galleries for many years has afforded me an insight into the creative process of artists, photographers and musicians. When we put on an exhibition, we don't just display an artist's most famous or most expensive works, but try to give the visitor an insight into their creative process and development as an artist.”
Proud continues to innovate and following the impact of Covid-19 has moved the majority of its photography archive to view online so that customers and collectors can explore, read about and discover the collection through its website.
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As Proud’s portfolio grew, the gallery embarked on several wildly successful tours with a photography exhibition held in New York (US), Virginia (US), Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and Melbourne. Referred to as the "hippest", "coolest", "most fun" and "most important" photography gallery on a regular basis from newspapers as varied as the Sun and Mirror to The Times and The Guardian reporting on the star-studded gallery opening nights, with guests typically including musicians, artists, supermodels, fashion designers, politicians, actors, music producers and DJs. The gallery welcomed: Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, Sir Elton John, Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Nikki Lauda, Terence Conran, Trudie Styler, Twiggy, Terry O Neill, Ian Rankin, Giorgio Armani, Alexander McQueen, Bands and musicians included: The Rolling Stones, The Clash, Sex Pistols, Blur, Kasabian, The Streets, Elastica, Bush, Prodigy, So Solid Crew, Supergrass, Primal Scream, Red Hot Chili Peppers, & No Doubt.
