Thursday, September 22, 2011

Opening Tonight - Vivian Maier @ Stephen Cohen

Vivian Maier: Street Photographer opens tonight from 6-9pm at Stephen Cohen Gallery.

The Stephen Cohen Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by recently discovered Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier (1926 - 2009).  The exhibition will showcase Maier’s wide range of images, from her wonderfully inspired self-portraits, and architectural views to her street portraits from New York, Chicago, and other cities, which document post-war America of the 1950s and 60s. 

Obscure until her work's recent discovery in abandoned storage lockers, Vivian Maier worked as a nanny in Chicago from the mid 1950s.  Born in New York and spending part of her youth in France, Maier traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

The black-and-white images document Maier’s unconditional interest in the human figure set against a diverse and ever-changing urban culture.  Her images are clearly of their time, and it appears that Maier may have been influenced by the work of some of her well-know peers, whose photographs were being exhibited during the period that she was photographing.

The exhibition will highlight contemporary prints made by Chicago master printer Ron Gordon, and Sandy Steinbrecher from original negatives in the collection of Jeffrey Goldstein.  Maier’s images have been exhibited in Chicago, Germany, and Norway, and are currently on view at the Hearst Corporation in New York.  She has been the subject of media coverage from CBS, BBC, The New York TimesTime Magazine, and many others.

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