Since 2007, when her photographs were discovered and brought to light, Vivian Maier‘s street photography has captured the imagination of people around the world. Maier, who secretly photographed life on the streets of Chicago and New York for over four decades, is primarily known for her black and white imagery. However, a new book and exhibition is spotlighting her color photography for the first time.Vivian Maier: The Color Work celebrates this visionary artist, one who worked silently and left behind over 150,000 photographs that lay out her way of observing the world. Together New York's Howard Greenberg Gallery and Harper Collins are bringing to the public many photographs that have never before been seen and exposing a new side of Maier's work. While many associate Maier with her beloved Rolleiflex, she also shot roughly 40,000 Ektachrome color slides with a 35mm over the last thirty years of her career.

Maier's color street photography shows the same keen eye for observation and her signature shots, such as her subtle self-portraits, are ever present. Taken from the 1950s to the 1980s, Maier's photographs demonstrate her passion for recording the world around her and, by using color, they become even more immediate to our modern eye.

“Maier was an early poet of color photography,” writes Joel Meyerowitz in the foreword to the book. “You can see in her photographs that she was a quick study of human behavior, of the unfolding moment, the flash of a gesture, or the mood of a facial expression—brief events that turned the quotidian life of the street into a revelation for her.”

Vivian Maier: The Color Work is on view at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York until January 5, 2019. The book, published by Harper Collins, is available online and in bookstores now.

Vivian Maier's color street photography is being celebrated in a new exhibition and book.

Vivian Maier: Website | Facebook

My Modern Met granted permission to use images by Howard Greenberg Gallery.