Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows
Richard Cahan and Michael Williams
2012, 287 pages
Nonfiction
Vivian Maier, celebrated amateur “nanny photographer,” was not discovered until after her lonely death in 2009. Her many, many photographs, which had by necessity been abandoned in storage and which she had never shared, luckily found their way to auction and into the hands of discerning collectors.
The short but thoughtful biographical sketch in Out of the Shadows introduces a “strong, smart, opinionated and painfully private” woman, who worked hard as a nanny and caretaker, but had few friends, and lived for her artistic journeys. Her perfectly framed black and white shots (primarily from her time in the Chicago area in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s) document domestic life, suburban streets and happy beach scenes, as well as intimate portraits of a wide variety of city dwellers.
She was drawn to and had a knack for getting up close to all sorts of people – from delicate old ladies in fancy hats to disheveled folks sitting on street corners. Politically charged images from 1968 document her interest in the changing times, while abstract shots of light and shadow reveal her more introspective tendencies. An absorbing pre-Instagram showcase of a very unique woman’s perspective on her world.
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