Vivian Maier self portrait probably taken in Chicago Illinois 1955

Vivian Dorothea Maier (1926-2009) was a street photographer who snapped away solely for herself from the 1950's to the 1990's. Many of her pictures... more

by David Lee Guss

Title

Vivian Maier self portrait probably taken in Chicago Illinois 1955

Artist

David Lee Guss

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Vivian Dorothea Maier (1926-2009) was a street photographer who snapped away solely for herself from the 1950's to the 1990's. Many of her pictures are self portraits. This is one of her quirkiest and best.

"She recorded her life primarily thought the images she took while she traveled the world on her own and with the families that hired her as a nanny. Her body of work includes hundreds of thousands of photographs from Chicago and New York City to France, Bangkok, and Beijing. Vivian has become one of America/s newly recognized and celebrated street photographers, capturing pieces of life and Americana that are unparalleled."

The intensely private Maier would have detested all the hoopla over her images, which she shared with nobody but are now heavily promoted as investments.

"Her work was only discovered in 2007 when a storage locker of hers was auctioned off due to delinquent payments. These lockers housed the amassed treasury of photos Vivian had taken over forty years. The images show sensitivity, a remarkable eye, and some of the most interesting shots we have of urban America.

And, unlike how we take ten photos of ourselves on our phone, most of these images were single takes, seen only by her for that instant in the viewfinder and then placed in her locker for only her to know. In effect, these make up a secret journal of her life, beautifully capturing the everyday things she chose to witness and record."

Uploaded

May 19th, 2014

Statistics

Viewed 19,827 Times  -  Last Visitor from New York, NY on 12/06/2023 at 1:01 AM

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags