There are artists who are so dedicated to their craft that the making of art itself is reward enough. They do not hanker public attention or seek to be remembered for posterity through exhibitions, books or social media. Many of them hold humble jobs, working full-time, while eking out pockets of time to pursue their photographic passion.

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was a American woman of French descent who worked most of her life as a nanny and housekeeper to families in Chicago. But her true passion was street photography. She carried a camera everywhere she went, capturing scenes of ordinary Americans in New York City and Chicago where she spent most of her life. Her output was prolific; by the time she died in 2009 at the age of 83, she left over 100,000 images, none of which she released to the public. Indeed, the world only gradually came to know about her work after her death. What it discovered were a treasure trove of highly perceptive and creative images: interesting bits of Americana, changes in the urban landscape from the 1950s through the 1970s, and the unseen lives of various groups of people including the destitute, images that the world belatedly acknowledge as the work of a master, one of the medium’s most passionate and enigmatic.

Selected Works of Vivian Maier