I like this author's analysis of Maier's images, but the editor should have challenged Scott on her hollow and lazy claims of sexism in this article.
"I’ve never heard anyone ask how another exceptional Chicago outsider, the visionary writer and artist Henry Darger, could have produced his fifteen-thousand-page magnum opus while holding down a job as a janitor."
Try to find any important article about Henry Darger without the word “janitor” in it. You won’t find one because his day job is an important part of his story, just as being a nanny is an important part of Vivian’s story. Artists-with-day-jobs has been a topic of discussion forever, and is not sexist.
“He [Meyerowitz] concludes, rightly, that “Maier was an early poet of color photography.” But he also floats a wince-inducing theory about her knack for snatching secrets, what he terms all great street photographers’ “cloak of invisibility”: “She’s as plain as an old-fashioned schoolmarm. She’s the wallflower, the spinster aunt, the ungainly tourist in the big city . . . except . . . she isn’t!” Has Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” ever been defined in terms of his looks?”
Of course it matters what street photographers look like, especially since they're often trying to blend in or play some role while they work. Cartier-Bresson was a good looking, wealthy dandy gliding through his scenes. Meyerowitz (the subject of her complaint) is a tall bald man dressed like a ninja, all black with a black knit cap. (He even made a video about how to blend in on the street while wearing that ridiculous get-up.) Even Weegee with his trench coat and omnipresent cigar hanging from his lips was playing a role while he worked. And goodness, just think of hulking in-your-face Bruce Gilden! It's entirely fair for Meyerowitz the ninja to notice the appearance of Maier, another street ninja, while praising her work. He’s earned that, without being labeled sexist.
As for the color photos, well damn, she's wonderful in color too. Looks like I need to place an order for yet another Maier book.
