Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows
*Starred Review* Excitement over the mysterious “nanny photographer” went viral after a selection of Maier’s commanding black-and-white photographs were displayed online shortly after her death in 2009. Her never-before-seen work was discovered after the contents of her storage lockers were auctioned off because she couldn’t pay the bills. Now the brilliant and intrepid photo reclamation and writing team of Cahan and Williams (The Lost Panoramas, 2011) tell Maier’s deeply moving story. They conferred with everyone they could find who knew Maier and chose 300 galvanizing photographs—most unprinted, many undeveloped—from the tens of thousands she shot. We learn that Maier, of French and Austrian descent, was born in New York City in 1926, raised in the French Alps, traveled the world with her camera, and settled in a Chicago suburb in 1956. She lived frugally while working as a nanny and caregiver, continually taking pictures of her young charges and their world and of Chicago’s see-it-all streets, composing urban tableaus of penetrating wit and empathy. Maier was “painfully private,” outspoken, unconventional, gutsy, and compassionate, and her long-secret photographs evince a profound clarity of vision and intent. Cahan and Williams compare Maier to Emily Dickinson, and her life and work do speak to our most cherished sense of what art is and why it matters. --Donna Seaman