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Vivian Maier took about 150,000 pictures during her lifetime, but never showed a single one to another living soul. When she died in April 2009, Vivian was remembered as a beloved nanny by the then-grown children who rescued her from homelessness and took care of her in her later years. Maier’s collection of negatives (most of which were never printed) was already being scattered to the winds after she failed to pay rent on her storage unit two years earlier. Thanks to filmmaker and street photographer John Maloof, who bought some of the negatives while researching another project, Vivian Maier’s photographs have been seen for the first time by the public and recognized as some of the finest street images taken by an American photographer, male or female, of the 20^th century. In Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits, Maloof continues the rediscovery of Maier’s work, but this time focusing on her unique, enigmatic self-portraits. Vivian Maier’s story is more than just the story of a single, almost-lost photographer, but also the story of the hidden history of women’sphotography and women’s art itself. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Vivian Maier and the Hidden History of Women's Photography."

Americans for the past decade seem more caught up than ever in the idea of what it is to be an American, especially in an election year and perhaps never so much as on the Fourth of July—the day on which we celebrate the Declaration of Independence that inaugurated this little experiment in democracy we’ve been performing for over two centuries. To see a picture of the Fourth of July 2012, all you need to do is look out your window at the parades, barbeques, and fireworks. But to look back two centuries and see the Fourth of July circa 1812, perhaps our best glimpse appears in John Lewis Krimmel’s Fourth of July, Center Square (detail shown above). Krimmel’s genre scene of Americans celebrating America back then allows us to see how our celebration today mirrors and, perhaps, distorts what our ancestors saw as most important for our country. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Picturing the Fourth of July."

[Image: John Lewis Krimmel. Fourth of July, Center Square (detail), 1811-1812.]

“Satire works by inference,” cartoonist G.B. Trudeau says in Brian Walker’s new book Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau. “What you condemn should reveal what you value, what you stand for. That’s why I don’t like categoric, 360-degree attacks. Scorched-earth artists leave no room for hope.” Since its debut on October 26, 1970, Doonesbury has attracted devotees as well as devoted critics with Trudeau’s heart-on-his-sleeve liberalism. Walker walks through the evolution of the Doonesbury, which began in 28 newspapers and now boasts 100 million daily readers, and gives not a biography of Trudeau but rather a biography of the life of the strip itself. Despite all the wars—cultural and shooting—of the past four decades, Trudeau never forgot to leave room for hope, and Walker’s affectionate tribute reminds us of that crowning achievement of his art. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Room for Hope."

[Many thanks to Yale University Press for providing me with a review copy of Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau by Brian Walker.]