Vivian Maier @ Chicago Cultural Center

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Vivian Maier @ Chicago Cultural Center

December 23rd, 2010 by fstop

Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer
January 8-April 3, 2011

As an accomplished street photographer, the late Vivian Maier discreetly chronicled life in Chicago’s Loop and surrounding districts for decades.

After immigrating to the United States as a refugee from World War II France, she eventually ended up in Chicago as a nanny to wealthy North Shore clients, but her passions ran much deeper. Over 100,000 negatives and more than 3,000 prints of her massive body of work were discovered in an estate auction shortly before her death in 2009.

While not much is known about Maier herself or her reasons for keeping her photographs hidden, this first exhibition of her work reveals a keen eye for observing the people and fashions of Chicago in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Opening Reception January 7, 2011 5:30-7:30
Chicago Cultural Center
78 E. Washington St, Michigan Avenue Galleries
Chicago, IL 60602

Location: Chicago Type:

Susan Hartnett Lutz says:

January 3, 2011 at 11:24 pm

I hired Vivian Meier to take care of my mother who lived at 719 N. Humphrey Ave., Oak Park, Ill for several years after she left the family in Wilmette. She was a character. She moved in with 200 boxes which I never knew quite what was in them. She kept them in the basement. She put a lock on her bedroom door immediately. Before she moved in she wanted the furniture moved out. She said she slept on the floor and did yoga. I lived in California at the time and only met her a few times. She told me she liked to go down to the Chicago L stations and photograph people. She was very much a reclusive person and was a liberal which drove my Mom crazy. She didn’t want to leave Mom’s house when Mom went into a nursing home. Vivian was sure Mom wouldn’t like the nursing home and would return to her Oak Park house and let Vivian take care of her again. We had some interesting conversations. She moved in about 1993 after I interviewed her when I answered her ad in the Chicago Tribune. She was there for several years. She told me she didn’t like the way Americans smiled all the time. Europeans didn’t do that! I enjoyed her as I am an artist too.

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