Vivian Maier ─ Self-portraits

Celebrated by The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, American Photo, Town and Country, and countless other publications, the life's work of recently discovered street photographer Vivian Maier has captivated the world and spawned comparisons to photography's masters including Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Walker Evans, and Weegee among others.

Now, for the first time, Vivian Maier: Self-Portrait will present the fullest and most intimate portrait of the artist herself with approximately 60 never-before-seen black-and-white and color self-portraits culled from the extensive Maloof archive, the preeminent collector of the work of Vivian Maier and editor of the highly acclaimed Vivian Maier: Street Photographer—bringing us closer to the reclusive artist than ever before.

There is still very little known about the life of Vivian Maier. What is known is that she was born in New York in 1926 and worked as a nanny for a family on Chicago’s North Shore during the 50s and 60s. Seemingly without a family of her own, the children she cared for eventually acted as caregivers for Maier herself in the autumn of her life. She took hundreds of thousands of photographs in her lifetime, but never shared them with anyone. Maier lost possession of her art when her storage locker was sold off for non-payment. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 83.

John Maloof is an author and street photographer involved in historic preservation of Chicago’s Northwest Side. He discovered the first negatives of Vivian Maier’s work in 2007 while compiling a book about the history of the neighborhood where he grew up. He edited the first published collection of Maier’s work, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer (powerHouse, 2011).

Elizabeth Avedon is an independent curator and writer. The former Director of Photo-Eye Gallery, Santa Fe and Creative Director for The Gere Foundation, she has received awards and recognition for her exhibition design and publishing projects, including the retrospective exhibition and book: Avedon: 1949–1979 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; and Richard Avedon: In the American West for the Amon Carter Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago, among many others. Elizabeth is a regular contributor to Le Journal de la Photographie profiling notable leaders in the world of Photography.