NEW YORK, Nov 12 — Vivian Maier — the Chicago nanny and secret street photographer whose work was the subject of a 2013 documentary — will return to the spotlight as an exhibit of her colour photography goes on show in New York.

The Howard Greenberg Gallery is staging "Vivian Maier: The Colour Work”, which focuses on her colour photos and will include many photographs on view for the first time.

The American photographer, who spent much of her youth in France and worked for decades as a nanny in Chicago, died in 2009 and was unknown as an artist until 2007, when the Chicago collector John Maloof acquired some of her work. Two years later, he posted a selection online and it went viral.

Maier’s secret life as a photographer, and her photos themselves, became the subject of the 2013 documentary Finding Vivian Maier, bringing international attention to her work.

In the New York show, which opens November 15, the focus will be on Maier’s colour photography, dating from the 1950s-1980s and capturing street life in New York and Chicago. Several enigmatic self-portraits are also included.

The exhibition coincides with the publication of a book of the same name, which is out this month and is the first book of Maier’s colour images.

Colin Westerbeck, a former curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago who provides the book’s text, writes in it, "The one advantage Maier gained from keeping her photography to herself was an exemption from contradiction and condescension. She didn’t have to worry about either the orthodoxy or the approval of her peers.”

"Vivian Maier: The Colour Work” runs from November 15, 2018 to January 5, 2019 at the Howard Greenberg Gallery. — AFP-Relaxnews