Who Is Vivian Maier?
Who is Vivian Maier? Why was she so secretive in life even and in death her mystery has deepened more? What drove Maier too keep her photography a secret? Why did she take them? Why wouldn’t want to share them with the world? Vivian Maier is an undiscovered photographer resurrected. For over 50 years Maier made more than 150,000 exposures in her lifetime. She printed only a fraction of these negatives. Unknown as a photographer during her long life, she was a private woman who now speaks powerfully through photographs she took only for herself. Sifting through boxes at an auction with the help of John Maloof, “a real-estate agent, amateur historian, and garage-sale obsessive, acquired a box of photographic materials and personal items at an auction in suburban Chicago in 2007” , Maier was found. Maloof's discovery of her photo work and his effort to piece together the story of her life began. He started to tracked down the rest of
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the boxes emptied from an abandoned storage garage, John accumulated an collection thousands of images shot in New York, Chicago, France, South America, and Asia between1950s and 1970s. "Two years after I bought the first box, I Googled her name again and, to my surprise, found an obituary announcing that Vivian Maier had died only a few days before." Some details of Maier's life remain unknown. Vivian Maier was born in New York on February 1, 1926 of a French mother, Maria Jaussaud, and an Austrian father, Charles Maier. Her parents separated soon after her birth. Her mother’s friend, Jeanne Bertrand, a well known photographer, became head of the Maier household after her father left. Her father and older brother stayed in New York and Vivian and her mother lived in Hautes-Alpes (Southeastern France) where Vivian would later taking her own photos began around 1949. Her first camera was a Kodak Brownie box camera, an amateur camera with, no focus control, and no aperture dial and only one shutter speed. In 1951, aged 25, Maier moved from France to New York, NY, where she worked in a sweatshop. She moved to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956, where she worked primarily as a nanny and career for the next 40 years. For her first 17 years in Chicago, Maier worked as a nanny for a few families: the Gensburgs from 1956 to 1972, the Raymonds from 1967 to 1973, and the Matthews family in the Chicago suburbs for three years in the 1980s. “She told me when she came to New York and worked in a sweatshop, she realized one day she wanted to do something where she could be outside and be in the world, seeing things, out and about and see the sun, so she took up nannying ” says Linda Matthews.
Often described as ‘Mary-Poppin’s’, Vivian Maier had energy on her side as a nanny for all the children she nannied for. She never talked down to kids and was determined to show them the world outside their suburb homes. She was very opinionated about how children should spend their time and mainly how they should spend it with her. The children knew that the main purpose of these outings was not for their benefit but to take pictures. On her outings with the children, they often dip in alley ways looking for junk, many times she has left and lost children behind just not to miss a photo opportunity. One of the families Maier nannied for, the child got hit by a car while riding his bike, and while waiting on the ambulance, Maier was taking pictures capturing every moment. As a nanny with the Raymond family, she would take the children to the city and just walk in the worse parts of town. If she would see a subject and sometimes often would ask them to pose for her, poor impoverished people. She truly did look at people in a different way and was not afraid to look and get close.
The images makes you wonder what those people’s lives were like, what were they thinking that second, what their fears and desires are. Her pictures are rich in meaning and beauty. Her subject was ordinary in life, and her style is straightforward and ordinary. Maier’s agenda was to go out and record what she saw. “The frames are so spontaneous. She showed us how people hugged, how they waited at bus stops, how they carried packages wrapped in twine. She helps us remember what those years felt like. ” Her ability to get close to her subjects is makes what makes her pictures so incredible. She’s not stalking or judging. Her subjects- the men, women and children who hardly noticed her, they were often deep in thought. They seem isolated or perhaps lonely, possibly just like Vivian. Her photo work of outcast and the unusual people has been compared to Diane Arbus who was passionate for the not normal or the outcast men, women and children of the world, she showed no judgment. Vivian’s’ work has also been compared to Helen Levitt who also made many photographs on the streets of New York, photographing children that played in poor neighborhoods.
Vivian cared deeply about the poor and oppressed (Native Americans and African Americans in particular) and showed little interest in the material world. Unwilling to talk about her background or her art, she was so quick to give advice to others. She would stop to tell homeless men in Chicago where they might go for shelter and lectured young women on dressing more modestly. “She had a sense of humor, a sense of tragedy and a sense of light and environment” In 1959 Vivian told her employer that she was going to travel the world and be back in 8 months. She traveled to the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Yemen, Egypt, Italy, and France. Only traveling by herself along with her medium-format camera and a tiny robot camera, which produced a small square negatives using 35- millimeter film. She also took other trips throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America. People who knew Vivian said that she had trouble making friends and keeping friends. "Many people viewed her as an oddity or eccentric" and was known to be difficult and temperamental as she got older in age. Vivian seldom even talked about her work with the camera store counterman when she picked up her film. In fact, as she got older, she couldn’t keep up with the processing and left hundreds of her rolls of film undeveloped. The Gensburg brothers, whom Vivian had looked after as children, tried to help her as she became poorer in old age. When she was about to be evicted from a cheap apartment in the suburb of Cicero, IL, the brothers arranged for her to live in a better apartment on Sheridan Road in the Rogers Park area of Chicago. In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice and hit her head. She was taken to hospital but failed to recover. In January 2009, she was transported to a nursing home in Highland Park, where she died on April 21, 2009.
The Chicago historian and collector, John Maloof, examined the images and began posting scans of Maier's negatives on the web in 2009, soon after her death then interest in Maier's work quickly followed after. Maloof is one in 3 of the major winning bidders of Maier’s negatives. Most of her stash of more than 100,000 negatives, along with slides, undeveloped film, and a smaller number of prints, wound up in the hands of two other collectors, Ron Slattery and Jeffrey Goldstein. Maloof said that he had been working for more than a year to register copyright to the images on the negatives he owns, based on his agreement with the man he believes to be Maier’s rightful heir, but that the copyright applications were still pending. and has spent years tending and promoting her work, even after being rejected many times, but managed through commercial galleries, museum exhibitions, books and a recent documentary, “Finding Vivian Maier,” that he helped direct. Slattery, who collects and deals in vintage photographs and maintains a website, bighappyfunhouse.com, got several thousand negatives and several thousand prints, mostly small pictures—three-by-three inches. While Maloof and Goldstein have presided over of Vivian Maier books, films, exhibits, and media coverage, Slattery's kept a relatively low profile. He made a brief appearance in a BBC documentary, The Vivian Maier Mystery. Slattery is currently going through a lawsuit; he turned 56 of his Vivian Maier photographs over to John Corbett and Jim Dempsey and is now seeking damages of more than $2 million for improper care of mounting photographs. Vivian Maier has become a photographic phenomenon.
Leaving behind over 100,000 negatives, 700 rolls of color film, over 2,000 undeveloped black and white film and prints found in a storage locker and sold at auction- attracted the attention of millions around the world. Unknown as a photographer during her long life, she was a private woman who now speaks powerfully through photographs she took only for herself. It seemed like she lived two different lives: her domestic life and personal, creative life. Maybe she never trusted anyone to bear witness to her work. It’s clear that Vivian did not want to be known as a photographer during her lifetime but her art was a private expression, one that she desired and kept behind locked doors. At every stage of her life as an artist. She was exploring, questioning, evolving and growing. Here is a woman who spent her entire adult life through a camera. In death, as in life, Vivian Maier left few clues about who she was, why she pursued photography and what she was
thinking.
the boxes emptied from an abandoned storage garage, John accumulated an collection thousands of images shot in New York, Chicago, France, South America, and Asia between1950s and 1970s. "Two years after I bought the first box, I Googled her name again and, to my surprise, found an obituary announcing that Vivian Maier had died only a few days before." Some details of Maier's life remain unknown. Vivian Maier was born in New York on February 1, 1926 of a French mother, Maria Jaussaud, and an Austrian father, Charles Maier. Her parents separated soon after her birth. Her mother’s friend, Jeanne Bertrand, a well known photographer, became head of the Maier household after her father left. Her father and older brother stayed in New York and Vivian and her mother lived in Hautes-Alpes (Southeastern France) where Vivian would later taking her own photos began around 1949. Her first camera was a Kodak Brownie box camera, an amateur camera with, no focus control, and no aperture dial and only one shutter speed. In 1951, aged 25, Maier moved from France to New York, NY, where she worked in a sweatshop. She moved to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956, where she worked primarily as a nanny and career for the next 40 years. For her first 17 years in Chicago, Maier worked as a nanny for a few families: the Gensburgs from 1956 to 1972, the Raymonds from 1967 to 1973, and the Matthews family in the Chicago suburbs for three years in the 1980s. “She told me when she came to New York and worked in a sweatshop, she realized one day she wanted to do something where she could be outside and be in the world, seeing things, out and about and see the sun, so she took up nannying ” says Linda Matthews.
Often described as ‘Mary-Poppin’s’, Vivian Maier had energy on her side as a nanny for all the children she nannied for. She never talked down to kids and was determined to show them the world outside their suburb homes. She was very opinionated about how children should spend their time and mainly how they should spend it with her. The children knew that the main purpose of these outings was not for their benefit but to take pictures. On her outings with the children, they often dip in alley ways looking for junk, many times she has left and lost children behind just not to miss a photo opportunity. One of the families Maier nannied for, the child got hit by a car while riding his bike, and while waiting on the ambulance, Maier was taking pictures capturing every moment. As a nanny with the Raymond family, she would take the children to the city and just walk in the worse parts of town. If she would see a subject and sometimes often would ask them to pose for her, poor impoverished people. She truly did look at people in a different way and was not afraid to look and get close.
The images makes you wonder what those people’s lives were like, what were they thinking that second, what their fears and desires are. Her pictures are rich in meaning and beauty. Her subject was ordinary in life, and her style is straightforward and ordinary. Maier’s agenda was to go out and record what she saw. “The frames are so spontaneous. She showed us how people hugged, how they waited at bus stops, how they carried packages wrapped in twine. She helps us remember what those years felt like. ” Her ability to get close to her subjects is makes what makes her pictures so incredible. She’s not stalking or judging. Her subjects- the men, women and children who hardly noticed her, they were often deep in thought. They seem isolated or perhaps lonely, possibly just like Vivian. Her photo work of outcast and the unusual people has been compared to Diane Arbus who was passionate for the not normal or the outcast men, women and children of the world, she showed no judgment. Vivian’s’ work has also been compared to Helen Levitt who also made many photographs on the streets of New York, photographing children that played in poor neighborhoods.
Vivian cared deeply about the poor and oppressed (Native Americans and African Americans in particular) and showed little interest in the material world. Unwilling to talk about her background or her art, she was so quick to give advice to others. She would stop to tell homeless men in Chicago where they might go for shelter and lectured young women on dressing more modestly. “She had a sense of humor, a sense of tragedy and a sense of light and environment” In 1959 Vivian told her employer that she was going to travel the world and be back in 8 months. She traveled to the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Yemen, Egypt, Italy, and France. Only traveling by herself along with her medium-format camera and a tiny robot camera, which produced a small square negatives using 35- millimeter film. She also took other trips throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America. People who knew Vivian said that she had trouble making friends and keeping friends. "Many people viewed her as an oddity or eccentric" and was known to be difficult and temperamental as she got older in age. Vivian seldom even talked about her work with the camera store counterman when she picked up her film. In fact, as she got older, she couldn’t keep up with the processing and left hundreds of her rolls of film undeveloped. The Gensburg brothers, whom Vivian had looked after as children, tried to help her as she became poorer in old age. When she was about to be evicted from a cheap apartment in the suburb of Cicero, IL, the brothers arranged for her to live in a better apartment on Sheridan Road in the Rogers Park area of Chicago. In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice and hit her head. She was taken to hospital but failed to recover. In January 2009, she was transported to a nursing home in Highland Park, where she died on April 21, 2009.
The Chicago historian and collector, John Maloof, examined the images and began posting scans of Maier's negatives on the web in 2009, soon after her death then interest in Maier's work quickly followed after. Maloof is one in 3 of the major winning bidders of Maier’s negatives. Most of her stash of more than 100,000 negatives, along with slides, undeveloped film, and a smaller number of prints, wound up in the hands of two other collectors, Ron Slattery and Jeffrey Goldstein. Maloof said that he had been working for more than a year to register copyright to the images on the negatives he owns, based on his agreement with the man he believes to be Maier’s rightful heir, but that the copyright applications were still pending. and has spent years tending and promoting her work, even after being rejected many times, but managed through commercial galleries, museum exhibitions, books and a recent documentary, “Finding Vivian Maier,” that he helped direct. Slattery, who collects and deals in vintage photographs and maintains a website, bighappyfunhouse.com, got several thousand negatives and several thousand prints, mostly small pictures—three-by-three inches. While Maloof and Goldstein have presided over of Vivian Maier books, films, exhibits, and media coverage, Slattery's kept a relatively low profile. He made a brief appearance in a BBC documentary, The Vivian Maier Mystery. Slattery is currently going through a lawsuit; he turned 56 of his Vivian Maier photographs over to John Corbett and Jim Dempsey and is now seeking damages of more than $2 million for improper care of mounting photographs. Vivian Maier has become a photographic phenomenon.
Leaving behind over 100,000 negatives, 700 rolls of color film, over 2,000 undeveloped black and white film and prints found in a storage locker and sold at auction- attracted the attention of millions around the world. Unknown as a photographer during her long life, she was a private woman who now speaks powerfully through photographs she took only for herself. It seemed like she lived two different lives: her domestic life and personal, creative life. Maybe she never trusted anyone to bear witness to her work. It’s clear that Vivian did not want to be known as a photographer during her lifetime but her art was a private expression, one that she desired and kept behind locked doors. At every stage of her life as an artist. She was exploring, questioning, evolving and growing. Here is a woman who spent her entire adult life through a camera. In death, as in life, Vivian Maier left few clues about who she was, why she pursued photography and what she was
thinking.