Post-War America and the Facade of the American Dream: Fotografiska Presents Photographer Vivian Maier

Showing now in her hometown of New York, the first major retrospective in the United States showcasing the work of the late photographer Vivian Maier. This article discusses the extraordinary story of one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century and how her work was only discovered after her death.

Vivian Maier was an American street photographer who was posthumously recognized for her exceptional work. Born on February 1, 1926, in New York City, Maier spent much of her childhood in France before returning to the United States, where she worked as a nanny for various families in Chicago for about four decades. Despite her lifelong passion for photography, Maier's work remained unknown during her lifetime.

Maier's photography primarily consists of candid street scenes in Chicago and New York during the 1950s and 1960s. Her keen eye for composition, light, and the human condition has been widely praised, drawing comparisons to renowned street photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus. Maier's work captures a broad spectrum of society, often focusing on marginalized communities, and offers a compelling, unfiltered glimpse into mid-20th-century urban life. Maier’s job as a caretaker allowed her to continue pursuing photography while feeding her interest in capturing childhood through her lens.

Maier’s self-portraits mark milestones in her body of work as she experiments with a variety of visual devices and typologies to signify her presence in the image, such as playing with shadows and projected silhouettes, reflections, and image within an image.

Maier took photos for herself alone and had a fierce desire for privacy; combined with a lack of stability in her career and finances, this prevented her from developing her own film. She placed undeveloped, unprinted work in storage with her other belongings in the early 2000s when she moved between living in a small studio apartment and being unhoused. Due to unpaid rental fees, the negatives were auctioned off by the storage company in 2007, and a large portion were purchased by John Maloof. Maloof, a filmmaker and photographer himself, became the first person to bring Maier’s work into the public eye and began to promote it widely just after her passing in 2009. Since then, Maier's work has gained global acclaim and is now featured in a major exhibition at Fotografiska Museum in New York.

Unseen Work will run from May 31 through September 29, 2024 at Fotografiska, New York and features approximately 230 works from the early 1950s to the late 1990s, including vintage and modern prints, color, black and white, super 8 films, and audio recordings, offering a complete vision of the artist’s rich archive, which serves as a fascinating testimony to post-war America and the facade of the American dream. “Fotografiska is proud to be the first museum in Vivian Maier’s hometown of New York to present a large-scale exhibition of her work,” says Sophie Wright, Executive Director of Fotografiska. “The story of the discovery of her extraordinary archive transcends photography, and her talent has captivated audiences worldwide. We’re grateful to be able to share her work for existing fans to enjoy while giving new audiences a chance to discover her.”

Unseen Work will shed new light on Maier’s extensive body of work and focus on the major themes that defined her creative output. In street scenes and sidewalk chronicles, portraits and self-portraits, as well as gestures, fragmentation and repetition, color photography, cinetism, and film, Maier took a humanist approach to photography that resulted in meticulous documentation of the major socio-political changes of the period. Many of Maier’s images and portraits observe in detail the working-class neighborhoods in New York and Chicago that she explored from many angles. “Vivian Maier captures the often challenging realities of American life in the late 20th century with great empathy and nuance,” says Anne Morin, director of diChroma photography and the show's curator. “This is a homecoming, and we are thrilled to collaborate with Fotografiska to bring Vivian’s work back to New York, a city that informed and inspired some of her best work.” With a focus on people on the margins of society who weren’t usually photographed and of whom images were rarely published, Maier’s austere portraits were taken on city streets the moment before the subject realized they were being photographed and provide a truly candid view into the times.

Practicing photography was one of the only ways Vivian Maier could make sense of the world and express herself freely. Maier’s work reveals how distant the American Dream is for most Americans, portraying through photography and film the everyday challenges they face that prevent them from economic mobility – debilitating poverty, long hours of labor, depression – some of which she experienced herself before receiving financial support later in life from the children she once nannied.

Fotografiska is the contemporary museum for photography, art, and culture. Founded in Stockholm in 2010 and led globally by its Chairman Yoram Roth, Fotografiska is a destination to discover world-class photography, eclectic programming, elevated dining, and surprising new perspectives. Guided by a mission to inspire a more conscious world through the power of photography, art, and culture, Fotografiska produces dynamic and unparalleled rotating exhibitions, spanning various genres in inclusive environments. With a dedicated international community and locations in Stockholm, New York City, Tallinn, Berlin, and Shanghai, Fotografiska is the premier global gathering place for photography and culture.

Unseen Work will run at Fotografiska New York until September 29, 2024.

All images © Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. via Fotografiska