Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kirk Crippens has been photographing since he was a child. Crippens began exhibiting in the United States in 2008, and internationally in 2011. In addition to other institutions and collections, his prints are held by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas and the Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, California. In addition to many others, his work has been shown in the National Portrait Gallery, London; Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; the Datz Museum, Gwangju, South Korea; the National Portrait Gallery, Scotland; and Pingyao International Photo Festival, Pingyao, China, where he exhibited in 2012 and 2015 and began his curatorial career in 2016. His first book, Live Burls , was published in 2017 by Schilt Publishing. His second book, Going South - Big Sur , released in 2019, was also published by Schilt. His photographs are represented in the United Stated by the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and in Europe by Schilt Gallery, Amsterdam.