This Mary Poppins Came Armed with a Camera

I was a man on a mission when I visited Fotografiska to see Vivian Maier: Unseen Work, the survey of photographs by the off-the-wall nanny whose life’s work, thoroughly unknown, was discovered in a storage unit in 2007. Maier (1926–2009), her work published and touted, is now considered a virtuosa, ranked with Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Wegee — some of the best, most trenchant street photographers of our era.

I’d never seen a critical mass of Maier’s photographs. And I’d never been to Fotografiska, a for-profit art space for contemporary photography that’s also a bar, coffee shop, bookshop, and music venue on 22nd Street and Park Avenue South in New York. Fotografiska is Swedish, with hotspots in Stockholm, London, Berlin, Shanghai, and Estonia’s Tallinn, now a hip hub. Unseen Work is the first Maier museum exhibition in New York. That’s surprising, since her eye is for city life.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

I was a man on a mission when I visited Fotografiska to see Vivian Maier: Unseen Work, the survey of photographs by the off-the-wall nanny whose life’s work, thoroughly unknown, was discovered in a storage unit in 2007. Maier (1926–2009), her work published and touted, is now considered a virtuosa, ranked with Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Wegee — some of the best, most trenchant street photographers of our era.

I’d never seen a critical mass of Maier’s photographs. And I’d never been to Fotografiska, a for-profit art space for contemporary photography that’s also a bar, coffee shop, bookshop, and music venue on 22nd Street and Park Avenue South in New York. Fotografiska is Swedish, with hotspots in Stockholm, London, Berlin, Shanghai, and Estonia’s Tallinn, now a hip hub. Unseen Work is the first Maier museum exhibition in New York. That’s surprising, since her eye is for city life.