Pamela Bannos S Vivian Maier A Photographer S Life And Afterlife Reviewed

In 2012 Northwestern University photography professor Pamela Bannos got a call from WTTW that sent her down a research rabbit hole from which she’s just emerged, new book in hand.

 That’s a major conceptual reversal, and Bannos told me in a brief interview last week that it was her impetus for writing the book. “I wanted to give her agency back,” she said. For years now, Bannos added, all we’ve heard about Maier, and all we’ve seen of her photographs is, “what the men who had her work were selecting.”