Signing for Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows November 29, 6:30 p.m.

Richard Cahan and Michael Williams will be at After-Words books on November 29, 2012, starting at 6:30 p.m., talking about and signing copies of their book, Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows (Cityfiles Press, $60, Hardback). Wine and nibbles provided. Vivian Maier, known as “the nanny photographer,” became an internet sensation after her work was put online soon after her death in 2009. Since then, Maier’s work has been shown throughout Europe and in major cities across the United States. Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows is the first book that tells her life store in pictures and words. To better understand Maier, authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams studied census records, ship manifests and interviewed every person they could find who knew Maier, from her childhood days in the French Alps to the families whose children she cared for. They combined this biographical information, much of it unreported, with more than 300 photographs that she took starting in 1949 to create the first comprehensive record of her life story—in words and pictures. This book is based on the largely unseen collection of about 18,000 Maier negatives, owned by Jeffrey Goldstein of Chicago. This is the first time Maier’s life story has been paired with her photographs so that readers can understand the woman and the work that went viral soon after her pictures went online. This book presents her in a new light by showing more personal photographs. The book Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows is the eighth by the award-winning team of Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. They are the coauthors of Richard Nickel’s Chicago and Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home. Other titles can be found cityfilespress.com.