Ben Rose began photographing at an early age and had his first show at the A-D Gallery in 1941 with Arnold Newman. He studied at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts and was on the faculty teaching Photography and Advertising Photography. He was part of the "Philadelphia Group", a group of designers and photographers who studied with Alexi Brodovitch in the 1930s. (The Philadelphia group included Saul Mednick, Ben Someroff, and Irving Penn)