Vivian Maier: The Color Work

The first definitive monograph of color photographs by American street photographer Vivian Maier.

Photographer Vivian Maier’s allure endures even though many details of her life continue to remain a mystery. Her story―the secretive nanny-photographer who became a pioneer photographer―has only been pieced together from the thousands of images she made and the handful of facts that have surfaced about her life. Vivian Maier: The Color Work is the largest and most highly curated published collection of Maier’s full-color photographs to date.

With a foreword by world-renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz and text by curator Colin Westerbeck, this definitive volume and essential photography book sheds light on the nature of Maier’s color images, examining them within the context of her black-and-white work as well as the images of street photographers with whom she clearly had kinship, like Eugene Atget and Lee Friedlander. With more than 150 color photographs, most of which have never been published in book form, this collection of images deepens our understanding of Maier, as its immediacy demonstrates how keen she was to record and present her interpretation of the world around her.

This landmark monograph reveals Maier’s masterful eye for color:

• A New Perspective on a Master: See over 150 of Maier’s color photographs, with most never before published in book form, revealing a new dimension to her celebrated artistic vision.
• Pioneering Street Photography: Explore the stunning immediacy of Maier’s work and understand her unique interpretation of the world around her, from the streets of Chicago to her global travels.
• Expert Curation and Context: Gain deeper insight through a foreword by world-renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz and illuminating text by curator Colin Westerbeck.
• Historical Art Context: Examine Maier’s color images in relation to her black-and-white photography and the work of contemporaries like Eugene Atget and Lee Friedlander.

Colin Westerbeck is the author of numerous books on photography, including Chuck Close: Photographer; A Democracy of Imagery; and with Joel Meyerowitz, Bystander, A History of Street Photography. The former curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and former director of the California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside, he has written a weekly column on photography for the Los Angeles Times and is a frequent contributor to Art in America. He lives in Los Angeles.