Her work was famously discovered posthumously in 2010. On her days off, or on outings with the kids in her charge, she wandered the streets of Chicago with her camera, sometimes also interviewing people she photographed. Maier, who died in 2009 at 83, funded her photography by working as a nanny for almost 40 years with families in Chicago’s North Shore. She took more than 150,000 photographs in her lifetime, but hardly showed them to anyone. Vivian Maier is one of the great enigmas of the art world. She often lied about her personal history. From what little we know about her life, she didn’t even want people to know where she lived, using a PO box to receive her mail rather than a home address when working as a live-in nanny, she would demand a lockable bedroom door. Organized by guest curator Frances Dorenbaum, the show allows present-day visitors who are just getting out of their houses to go to museums the opportunity to reflect on the striking parallels between Maier’s way of looking and ours now-Maier could observe people without herself being seen. On display in the Chicago History Museum, “Vivian Maier: In Color” is a multimedia exhibition featuring 65 color images made during her time as a suburban Chicago nanny from the 1950s to 1970s. Maier’s world is elusive and distant, even in color. Find ourselves wondering how she saw what she saw. Lean into the photograph to find traces of the woman and her camera. We all started playing a tiny game of contorting our bodies to position ourselves the way she would have. That is what happened to me and almost all viewers meeting a Maier image at the Chicago History Museum last week. Try to take a photo of her photos, and not only do you have an image of multiple fractured reflections, but you end up in the picture as well. She is the punctum and that isn’t by accident.

Often there is a shadow, a reflection, a hand or a finger in the frame if you spend enough time with the image. Whether it is outside of the picture or inside of it. You start looking for Maier in her photos.

They stop, look closely, and find themselves asking where Maier was standing when she took this photograph. Something very interesting happens when a person encounters a Vivian Maier photograph. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.

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