The mysterious New York nanny who helped shape 20th-century street photography

Helen Stoilas | CNN | 24th June 2024

Meier’s story – the nanny with a secret passion for photography – is now well known. Does a first retrospective in the US reveal anything new about her images? Her skill at composition, her instinct for a telling detail, are evident throughout her work. Does that make her a ‘great’ street photographer like, say, Arbus? Some think so, but one writer notes that her “lifetime of anonymity persists in the work … she didn’t contribute anything uniquely her own. [Her best work] are her self-portraits”.