For more than four decades, Vivian Maier (1926-2009) worked as a nanny for various families in New York City and Chicago.
During this time she began to photograph more and more: street scenes, portraits, still lifes and landscapes.
When she died in 2009, her estate included 120,000 negatives, numerous Super 8 and 16mm films and photographic prints.
Her work remained unknown to the public during her lifetime.
It was not until 2007 that a young historian discovered, rather by accident, her extensive life's work, most of which Vivian Maier had deposited in a warehouse.
Vivian Maier knew how to capture her surroundings in snapshots that tell of the beauty of everyday life and of the special in the seemingly banal.
On her forays she was always on the lookout for the unnoticed and the elusive, which she usually captured in unusual compositions.
The main focus of her work are the brief encounters with strangers in public space.
Although she often photographed them at close range, her point of view remains mostly distanced and chosen from a position where she remained unnoticed by her protagonists.
However, Maier counters this invisibility with countless self-portraits, which she created all over the city and for which she also chose unusual perspectives: a shadow on the ground, a silhouette in a shop window or a reflection in an object.
With a passion bordering on the obsessive for the act of photography, Maier turned the street into her theater, where every gesture seemed to have more meaning than the image that emerged from it.
Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation presents the exhibition “Vivian Maier.
Street Photographer” until January 15, 2023 in The Cube, the headquarters of Deutsche Börse AG in Eschborn near Frankfurt.