Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier

Maier, who died in 2009, has recently become an unlikely art star. Championed for her remarkable photographs of city life in mid-century America and fetishized for her choice to work as a nanny in the Chicago suburbs, Maier and her lifelong photographic endeavor, which produced hundreds of thousands of negatives left largely unseen until her death, have given rise to a mini-cottage industry of books, exhibitions, profiles, and a hit documentary, all of which explore the known facts and unsolvable mysteries surrounding her. Maier shot mostly with a twin-lens Rolleiflex held at hip-height, which allowed her to capture the world as she saw it inconspicuously. Not everyone noticed she was taking pictures, but sometimes people looked back. This monograph, culled from the Jeffrey Goldstein Collection, collects images in which subjects reciprocated Maier’s gaze: a young boy peers through the round window of his balaclava; a gold-toothed mother suckles her child; a hoary French farmer holds a flower in his mouth; a grandma in horn rims purses her bow lips; a girl smiles widely from the recesses of her woolly hood. Seen together, these pictures of strangers speak volumes about the true talent of the photographer, especially her ability to capture the instant, temporary intimacy that blooms when we choose to look into each other’s eyes. (July)