Vivian Maier — The color work — Les Douches la Galerie — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 19 → March 30, 2019

Now I could really see the heart in the work.

Who was this woman? Was she simply a naïf who sprang whole into midcentury American photography, or had she done her fair share of looking at other work? Before writing back to John, I wrote to Colin: “You have to see this work–an unknown woman just landed in the middle of the history of street photography.”

Vivian Maier, Chicago, 1962 Chromogenic print, posthumous — 30,4 × 30,6 cm © Estate of Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection — Courtesy Les Douches la Galerie, Paris & Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

There were tender portraits and exquisite moments of frozen action; there were streetscapes and children at play; there were small details and gestures beautifully seen and framed, as well as photographs of the old, the down-and-out, and the lost souls of Chicago and New York. Above all, there was a fierce intelligence weaving its way throughout the color work.

Vivian Maier, Chicago, 1978 Chromogenic print, posthumous — 25,3 × 38,2 cm © Estate of Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection — Courtesy Les Douches la Galerie, Paris & Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

All this, in color! How courageous, and how invisible! I was sure she didn’t print color, because, who did back then? Which meant that the photographs had stayed hidden in boxes and most likely hadn’t played a big role in her artistic growth, yet they were–and are now–works of value to us who are alive to see her development.

Vivian Maier, Untitled Chromogenic print, posthumous — 30,4 × 30,6 cm © Estate of Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection — Courtesy Les Douches la Galerie, Paris & Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

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Maier was an early poet of color photography.

Joel Meyerowitz, Preface, Vivian Maier: The Color Work, Harper Design, 2018