"Chicago"

gelatin silver print

stamp of the Maloof Collection, signed and authenticated by John Maloof with date, printing date and edition number in ink on verso

Vivian Maier came from an American immigrant family with Austrian-French roots. She was an ambitious amateur photographer: throughout her life, she captured more than 100,000 impressions on the streets of New York and later Chicago with her camera. Nobody knew about her great passion. Lonely and impoverished, she lived a very secluded life as a nanny and housekeeper. It was only after her death that her estate was discovered and she gained international attention with the award-winning film Finding Vivian Maier by John Maloof.
“The precise observer of social inequality [...] precisely perceives how even children [...] are shaped in habitus and expression by their origins. Her view of women is softer and more understanding than that of men. Her preferred framing is the half-length shot; she sometimes captures people from higher social classes from below - concealed and unnoticed - and those who have fallen out of the social network from above. But she prefers to point the camera directly at the subjects.“¹
The photograph from 1961 was taken at a time when Maier was working as a nanny for the wealthy Gensburg family (from 1956 to 1972). Lane Gensburg later said of Maier, “She was like a real, live Mary Poppins” who showed the children the world outside the affluent suburbs.² The families reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, usually with a Rolleiflex camera.³ She often took the young children in her care into downtown Chicago to take pictures.
(Christoph Fuchs, translated by deepL)

1
Meret Ernst, Die Fotografin Vivian Maier in der Photobastei, 2016, https://www.hochparterre.ch/nachrichten/kultur/die-fotografin-vivian-maier-in-der-photobastei (retrieved Sep 3, 2024)

2
Richard Cahan and Michael Williams (ed.), Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows, Chicago 2012, pp. 86–87

3
Mary Houlihan, A developing picture: The story of Vivian Maier, The Chicago Sun-Times, 2.1.2011