VIVIAN MAIER: UNSCRIPTED PART 2 13 Newly Added Prints Will Be on View + Video Footage of Chicago shot by Maier Born in New York and raised in France, Vivian Maier spent some forty years working as a nanny in the Chicago area. As a fiercely private individual, she could often be found out on the streets taking photographs. She appeared to most outsiders as little more than a dedicated hobbyist. Though she rarely spoke of taking photos, and kept her work to herself, Maier’s internal life was fueled by a passion for photography and the nuances of public life. This passion took her all across the urban expanses of Chicago, New York, and the West as well as to exotic locales like Beijing, Manila and Egypt. Throughout this time, Maier was hoarding a treasure trove of images, that once discovered, placed her among the greatest American photographers. Maier focused on people from all walks of life, revealing a sensitivity and compassion for the broad mass of humanity. She had the ability to render a crowd of people as individuals, with a keen eye for the rare moments in which strangers exposed aspects of their character that otherwise would have been lost to a public façade. She also had a knack for capturing larger cultural undercurrents just beyond the frame. Maier's self-portraits, highlighted in the exhibition, reveal a woman thoroughly comfortable in her own skin. Maier died in 2009 at the age of 83, before the extent of her legacy had been fully understood or revealed. In her latter years, children she once cared for helped pay her bills as she had no known family at the time. Despite being virtually unknown to the public during her lifetime, Maier’s allure endures as scholars and admirers continue to research and piece together details of her life, despite much of which remains a mystery. As renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz put it, Maier was “a quick study of human nature, of the unfolding moment, the flash of a gesture, or the mood of a facial expression – brief events that turned the quotidian life of the street into a revelation...” Maier's work has been covered by The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, American Photo, Town and Country, and countless other publications. Her work has captivated the world and spawned comparisons to photography's masters including Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Walker Evans, and Weegee, among others. Her work has been exhibited worldwide at Le Musée du Luxemborg, Paris, Centro Cultural de Cascais, Cascais , Portugal, Espaço Cultural Porto Seguro, São Paulo, Brazil, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, FoLa Fototeca, Latinoamericana, Buenos Aires , Argentina, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Canada,The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland, Musée de l’Ancien Évêché, Grenoble, France, Patio Herreriano Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid Spain, Spain among others