Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer February 16, 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.