Vivian Maier (1926-2009) was born in New York to a French mother, who moved Maier to France as a child. In the 1950s, she began working as a professional nanny for families in Chicago. It was during this time that Maier became a voracious street photographer of Chicago, New York, and while travelling abroad. Remarkably, during her lifetime, she kept her photographs private and showed them to no one. In 2007, the contents of her storage locker, including some 100,000 negatives, were auctioned in Chicago due to delinquent payments. After the discovery of her extensive collection, champions of Maier’s photographs have worked tirelessly to give these images their proper recognition with exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. Maier has been compared to the greatest street photographers in the canon of art history: Lisette Model, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, and André Kertész.