1. A gesture recognition apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: a storage unit to store a vein pattern lookup table including a plurality of reference vein pattern images according to a rotation angle of a driver's hand; an image acquisition unit to acquire a driver's image comprising an image of the driver's hand; and a controller to: extract a vein pattern image of the driver's hand from the driver's image; authenticate the driver by comparing the extracted vein pattern image with the vein pattern lookup table; and determine a gesture of the driver comprising at least one of a position of the driver's hand, a direction directed by the driver's hand and a rotation angle of the driver's hand based on the extracted vein pattern image.