Monte Gerlach is a Professor of Art at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois. In 1977, he won the Young Photographer of the Year award at the Photography Festival in Arles, France. His work has been shown nationally and internationally over the last forty years. The Ballet of Violence, a book on Professional Wrestling in the 1980s, was published in 2010. The Flash of Recognition, which came out in 2011, is a book on street portraits. On Display, Observations by Monte Gerlach, came out in 2015.