Kren was a professor of European intellectual history at Kansas State University. A dedicated photographer, he enjoyed capturing friends and associates with his lens. Many of his portraits show regional artists with whom he became acquainted through his wife, Margo Kren, K-State professor emeritus of art. Many of these artist-photographs appear in Margo Kren’s A Gathering in the Arts: Midwesterners Photographed by George M. Kren.