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Vivian Dorothy Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American
street photographer Street photography is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within Public space, public places. It usually has the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by caref ...
whose work was discovered and recognized after her death. She took more than 150,000 photographs during her lifetime, primarily of the people and architecture of
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, and
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, although she also traveled and photographed around the world. During her lifetime, Maier's photographs were unknown and unpublished; many of her negatives were never developed. A Chicago collector, John Maloof, acquired some of Maier's photos in 2007, while two other Chicago-based collectors, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow, also found some of Maier's prints and negatives in her boxes and suitcases around the same time. Maier's photographs were first published on the Internet in July 2008, by Slattery, but the work received little response.Slattery, Ron. (July 2008)
Story
, in ''Big Happy Fun House''. Retrieved on January 11, 2011.
In October 2009, Maloof linked his blog to a selection of Maier's photographs on the image-sharing website
Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
, and the results went viral, with thousands of people expressing interest. Maier's work subsequently attracted critical acclaim,"Vivian Maier"
''Chicago Tonight'', broadcast by WTTW, December 22, 2010. Retrieved on January 4, 2011
and since then, Maier's photographs have been exhibited around the world. Her life and work have been the subject of books, music and documentary films, including the film '' Finding Vivian Maier'' (2013), which premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
, and was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. The ...
at the
87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:30  ...
.


Early life

Many details of Maier's life remain unknown. She was born in New York City in 1926, the daughter of a French mother, Maria Jaussaud Justin, and an Austrian father, Charles Maier (also known as Wilhelm). Several times during her childhood she moved between the U.S. and France, living with her mother in the
alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...
village of
Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur (; named for Bonitus (bishop), Saint Bonitus, before 1988: ''Saint-Bonnet'')1930 Census The 1930 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from April 1, 1930, determined the resident population of the United States to be 122,775,046, an increase of 13.7 percent over the 106,021,537 persons enumerated during th ...
, the head of the household was listed as Jeanne Bertrand, a successful photographer who knew
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (January 9, 1875 – April 18, 1942) was an American sculptor, art patron and collector, and founder in 1931 of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. She was a prominent social figure and hostess, ...
, founder of the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
. When Maier was 4, she and her mother moved to
the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
with Bertrand. In 1935, Vivian and her mother were living in
Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur ( Vivaro-Alpine: ''Sant Julian de Champsaur'') is a commune in the Hautes-Alpes department in southeastern France. Population Notable residents Vivian Maier Street photographer Vivian Maier lived and photographed ...
; three years later, they returned to New York. In the
1940 Census The 1940 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 132,164,569, an increase of 7.6 percent over the 1930 population of 122,775,046 people. The census date of record was A ...
, Charles, Maria, Vivian and Charles Jr were listed as living in New York, where the father worked as a steam engineer.


Career

In 1951, aged 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked in a
sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a cramped workplace with very poor and/or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperat ...
. She moved to Chicago's North Shore area in 1956, where she worked primarily as a nanny and carer for the next 40 years. In her first 17 years in Chicago, Maier worked as a nanny for two families: the Gensburgs from 1956 to 1972, and the Raymonds from 1967 to 1973. Lane Gensburg later said of Maier, "She was like a real, live
Mary Poppins Mary Poppins may refer to: * Mary Poppins (character), a nanny with magical powers * Mary Poppins (franchise), based on the fictional nanny ** Mary Poppins (book series), ''Mary Poppins'' (book series), the original 1934–1988 children's fanta ...
," and said she never talked down to kids and was determined to show them the world outside their affluent suburb. The families who employed her described her as very private and reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, usually with a
Rolleiflex Rolleiflex is a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werke. History The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's premier line of med ...
camera.Houlihan, Mary (January 2, 2011)
A developing picture: The story of Vivian Maier
''The Chicago Sun-Times''. Retrieved on January 4, 2011.
She would frequently take the young children in her care with her into the center of Chicago when she took her photographs. Occasionally they accompanied her to the rougher, run-down areas of Chicago, and, on one occasion, the stock yards, where there were bodies of dead sheep. In the documentary films '' Finding Vivian Maier'' (2013) and ''Vivian Maier: Who Took Nanny's Pictures'' / ''The Vivian Maier Mystery'' (2013), interviews with Maier's employers and their children suggest that Maier presented herself to others in multiple ways, with various accents, names, life details, and that with some children, she had been inspiring and positive, while with others she could be frightening and abusive. John Maloof, curator of some of Maier's photographs, summarized the way the children she nannied would later describe her: In 1959 and 1960, Maier embarked on a solo trip around the world, taking pictures in Los Angeles, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Yemen, Egypt, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Italy, France, and Switzerland. The trip was probably financed by the sale of a family farm in Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur. For a brief period in the 1970s, Maier worked as a housekeeper for talk-show host
Phil Donahue Phillip John Donahue (December 21, 1935 – August 18, 2024) was an American media personality, writer, film producer, and the creator and host of '' The Phil Donahue Show''. The television program, later known simply as ''Donahue'', was the fir ...
. She kept her belongings at her employers'; at one residence, she had 200 boxes of materials. Most contained photographs or negatives, but Maier also collected newspapers; in at least one instance, it involved "shoulder-high piles." She also recorded audiotapes of conversations she had with people she photographed.


Later years

The Gensburg brothers, whom Maier had looked after as children, tried to help her as she became destitute in old age. When she was about to be evicted from a downmarket apartment in the suburb of
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
, the Gensburg brothers arranged for her to live in a better apartment on
Sheridan Road Sheridan Road is a major north-south street that leads from Diversey Parkway (Chicago), Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine, Wisconsin, Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the ...
in the
Rogers Park Rogers Park is a neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized community areas. Located north of the Loop along the shore of Lake Michigan, it features green spaces, early 20th-century ...
area of Chicago. In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice and hit her head. She was taken to a hospital but failed to recover. In January 2009, she was transported to a nursing home in the Chicago suburbs, where she died in April 2009.Cahan, ''Vivien Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2012, p. 263 She was buried in a patch of wild strawberries in a ravine near the house of a family whose children she had cared for in the early 1960s. As one of those children said in '' Finding Vivian Maier'', "I think she liked it so much, that's why they buried her there".


Discovery and recognition

In 2007, two years before she died, Maier failed to keep up payments on storage space she had rented on Chicago's North Side. As a result, her negatives, prints, audio recordings, and
8 mm film 8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the film strip is wide. It exists in two main versions – the original standard 8 mm film, also known as regular 8 mm, and Super 8. Although both standard 8 mm and ...
were auctioned. Three photo collectors bought parts of her work: John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow.Cahan, ''Vivien Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2012, p.283 Maier's photographs were first published on the internet in July 2008 by Slattery, but the work received little response. Maloof had bought the largest part of Maier's work, about 30,000 negatives, because he was working on a book about the history of the Chicago neighborhood of Portage Park. Maloof later bought more of Maier's photographs from another buyer at the same auction. Maloof discovered Maier's name in his boxes but was unable to discover anything about her until a
Google search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...
led him to Maier's death notice in the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' in April 2009. In October 2009, Maloof linked his blog to a selection of Maier's photographs on
Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
; they became a
viral phenomenon Viral phenomena or viral sensations are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. Analogous to the way in which viruses propagate, the te ...
, with thousands of people expressing interest. In early 2010, Chicago art collector Jeffrey Goldstein acquired a portion of the Maier collection from Prow, one of the original buyers. Since Goldstein's original purchase, his collection has grown to include 17,500 negatives, 2,000 prints, 30 home movies, and numerous slides. In December 2014, Goldstein sold his collection of black and white negatives to Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto. Maloof, who runs the Maloof Collection, now owns around 90% of Maier's total output, including 100,000 to 150,000 negatives, more than 3,000 vintage prints, hundreds of rolls of film, home movies, audio tape interviews, and ephemera including cameras and paperwork, which he claims represents roughly 90 percent of her known work. Since her posthumous discovery, Maier's photographs, and their discovery, have received international attention in mainstream media, and her work has appeared in gallery exhibitions, several books, and documentary films.


Legal challenge

In June 2014, lawyer and former photographer David C. Deal filed a legal case challenging the rights of current owners of Maier's negatives to commercialize them. The case sought to establish whether there is a legal heir to Maier's estate — a cousin in France — who should be recognized under American law. Under copyright law in the US, owning a photograph is distinct from owning copyright and the case may take several years to resolve, particularly since the potential heirs to the estate live outside the US. Maloof, who owns the majority of Maier's known photographs, had previously tracked down a
first cousin once removed A cousin is a relative who is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin. A parent of a first cousin is an aunt or uncle. More generally, in the kinship system used in the English-speaking world, c ...
in France and paid him for the rights; however, Deal believes he has found a closer relative in France who may be the estate's beneficiary. Because of the dispute,
Cook County, Illinois Cook County is the List of counties in Illinois, most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, C ...
, created an estate for Maier. In 2016, the county-administered estate reached a settlement which allowed Maloof to continue promoting Maier's work and keep an undisclosed amount of the proceedings. Goldstein refused to settle with the estate and was sued by the county for copyright infringement in 2017. As of 2018, the estate had not yet determined Maier's rightful heirs.


Photography

Artist and photography critic
Allan Sekula Allan Sekula (January 15, 1951 – August 10, 2013) was an American photographer, writer, filmmaker, theorist and critic. From 1985 until his death in 2013, he taught at California Institute of the Arts. His work frequently focused on large economi ...
has suggested that the fact that Maier spent much of her early life in France sharpened her visual appreciation of American cities and society. Sekula compared her work with the photography of Swiss-born
Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his ...
.Cahan, ''Vivien Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2012, pp. 40–41 Maloof has said of her work: "Elderly folk congregating in Chicago's Old
Polish Downtown Polish Downtown was Chicago's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. Polish Downtown was the political, cultural and social capital of Poles in Chicago and of other Polish Americans throughout North America. Centered on Polonia Triangle ...
, garishly dressed dowagers, and the urban
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
experience were all fair game for Maier's lens." Photographer
Mary Ellen Mark Mary Ellen Mark (March 20, 1940 – May 25, 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and t ...
has compared her work to that of
Helen Levitt Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009) was an American photographer and cinematographer. She was particularly noted for her street photography around New York City. David Levi Strauss described her as "the most celebrated and lea ...
, Robert Frank,
Lisette Model Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography. A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member ...
, and
Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; ; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
by
.
Joel Meyerowitz Joel Meyerowitz (born March 6, 1938) is an American street, portrait and landscape photographer. He began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate of the use of color during a time when there was significant resistance to the ide ...
, also a street photographer, has said that Maier's work was "suffused with the kind of human understanding, warmth and playfulness that proves she was 'a real shooter'." Maier's best-known photographs depict street scenes in Chicago and New York during the 1950s and 1960s. A critic in ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' wrote that "the well-to-do shoppers of Chicago stroll and gossip in all their department-store finery before Maier, but the most arresting subjects are those people on the margins of successful, rich America in the 1950s and 1960s: the kids, the black maids, the bums flaked out on shop stoops."Little Miss Big Shot
, ''The Independent'' (November 1, 2009). Retrieved on January 4, 2011.
Most of Maier's photographs are
black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
, and many are casual shots of passers-by caught in transient moments "that nonetheless possess an underlying gravity and emotion". In 1952, she purchased her first
Rolleiflex Rolleiflex is a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werke. History The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's premier line of med ...
camera. Over the course of her career she used Rolleiflex 3.5T, Rolleiflex 3.5F, Rolleiflex 2.8C, Rolleiflex Automat and others. She later also used a
Leica III The Leica III is a Barnack model rangefinder camera introduced by Leica in 1933, and produced in parallel with the Leica II series. Several models were produced over the years, with significant improvements. The Leica III uses a coupled rangefin ...
c rangefinder camera, an Ihagee
Exakta The Exakta (sometimes Exacta) was a camera produced by the ''Ihagee Kamerawerk'' in Dresden, Germany, founded as the Industrie und Handels-Gesellschaft mbH, in 1912. The inspiration and design of both the VP Exakta and the Kine Exakta are the w ...
, a Zeiss
Contarex Contarex is a line of 135 film, 35mm single lens reflex cameras (SLRs) made by Zeiss Ikon. It was first presented at Photokina in 1958 and initially scheduled for delivery in the spring of 1959, but it was not made generally available in the Unite ...
and other
SLR cameras SLR may refer to: Science and technology * Satellite laser ranging, a method to measure the distance to satellites * Scalable Linear Recording tape drive backup * Scanline rendering * Sea level rise * Self-loading rifle or Semi-automatic rifle#O ...
. Writing in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', William Meyers notes that because Maier used a
medium-format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the used in 35&n ...
Rolleiflex Rolleiflex is a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werke. History The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's premier line of med ...
, rather than a
35mm 35 mm may refer to: Film * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock * 35MM, a "musical exhibition" by Ryan Scott Oliver that features music ...
camera, her pictures have more detail than those of most street photographers. He writes that her work brings to mind the photographs of Harry Callahan,
Garry Winogrand Garry Winogrand (; January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, who portrayed U.S. life and its social issues in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Winogrand the ...
, and
Weegee Ascher (Usher) Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), known by his pseudonym Weegee, was a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee worked in Manhattan's Lower Eas ...
, as well as Robert Frank. He also notes that there are a high number of self-portraits in her work, "in many ingenious permutations, as if she were checking on her own identity or interpolating herself into the environment. A shadowy character, she often photographed her own shadow, possibly as a way of being there and simultaneously not quite there."
Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...
, writing in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', has drawn attention to how Maier's photographs are reminiscent of many famous 20th-century photographers, and yet have an aesthetic of their own. She writes that Maier's work "may add to the history of 20th-century street photography by summing it up with an almost encyclopedic thoroughness, veering close to just about every well-known photographer you can think of, including Weegee, Robert Frank and
Richard Avedon Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. He worked for ''Harper's Bazaar'', '' Vogue'' and '' Elle'' specializing in capturing movement in still pictures of fashion, theater and ...
, and then sliding off in another direction. Yet they maintain a distinctive element of calm, a clarity of composition and a gentleness characterized by a lack of sudden movement or extreme emotion." In the late 1970s, Maier stopped using her Rolleiflex. Most of her photographs taken in the 1980s and 1990s were color transparencies, taken on
Ektachrome Ektachrome is a brand name owned by Kodak for a range of transparency, still and motion picture films previously available in many formats, including 35 mm and sheet sizes to 11 × 14 inch size. Ektachrome has a distinctive look that ...
film.Cahan, ''Vivien Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2012, p. 262


Legacy

A documentary on Maier, '' Finding Vivian Maier,'' was released in 2013. It featured some of the now grown children whom Maier had cared for in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, who recalled how she combined her work as a photographer with her day job as a nanny. In the 2014 to 2015 school year at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which gr ...
, the Vivian Maier Scholarship Fund was established to provide opportunity to female students with need for additional financial resources. The scholarship was endowed through donations by Maloof, Siskel and Howard Greenberg, the owner of Howard Greenberg Gallery which exhibits and deals her work. Maloof used the funds received from print sales and his film '' Finding Vivian Maier'' to help create the scholarship with the intention for it to be permanent and offered on a yearly basis. With no application process, the money will be awarded to students not based on degree, enrollment year, or medium they are working within, allowing artistic freedom to the recipients. The names of recipients have not been publicly released.


Documentary films about Maier

* ''Vivian Maier: Who Took Nanny's Pictures'' (2013) – directed by
Jill Nicholls Jill Nicholls is a British filmmaker, best known for her art documentaries on television. Her films over the decades have frequently featured the lives of high-profile figures, including Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Diana Athill, Judith Kerr, Sa ...
, produced by the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
**''The Vivian Maier Mystery'' (2013) – re-cut and released in the U.S. * '' Finding Vivian Maier'' (2013) – directed by Maloof and Charlie Siskel * ''The Woman in the Mirror'' (2017) – directed by Ryan Alexander Huang, biographical short film


Music

In 2018, Welsh rock band
Manic Street Preachers Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Wales, Welsh Rock music, rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, in 1986. The band consists of Nicky Wire (bass guitar, lyrics) and cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, le ...
recorded the song "Vivian" for the Resistance Is Futile album; lyricist
Nicky Wire Nicholas Allen Jones (born 20 January 1969), known as Nicky Wire, is a Welsh musician, best known as lyricist, bassist and secondary vocalist of the Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. Prior to the group, Wire studied politics ...
is a fan of her work. Fellow band members stated that "She was probably one of the best casual journalistic photographers who ever lived, but never been recognised. Nick became obsessed with Vivian Maier as a photographer, I think he sees it as a true representation of an artist working and having no feedback from the outside world."


Archives

In 2017, the
University of Chicago Library The University of Chicago Library is the library system of the University of Chicago, located on the university's campus in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the seventh largest academic library and the fourth largest private library in th ...
announced that a research collection of Maier images was donated by Maloof.


Publications


Books of Maier's photographs

*''Vivian Maier: Street Photographer.'' Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse, 2011. . Edited by John Maloof. With an introduction by Maloof and a foreword by
Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer (born 1958) is an English author. He has written a number of novels and non-fiction books, some of which have won literary awards. Dyer was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2005.
. *''Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows''. Chicago, IL: CityFiles, 2012. . Edited by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. *''Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits.'' Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse, 2013. . Edited by Maloof. *''Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier.'' Chicago, IL: CityFiles, 2014. . Edited and with text by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. *''Vivian Maier: A Photographer Found.'' London: Harper Design, 2014. . Edited by Maloof with text by Marvin Heiferman and Howard Greenberg. *''The Color Work.'' New York City: Harper Design, 2014. . With a foreword by
Joel Meyerowitz Joel Meyerowitz (born March 6, 1938) is an American street, portrait and landscape photographer. He began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate of the use of color during a time when there was significant resistance to the ide ...
and text by
Colin Westerbeck Colin Leslie Westerbeck Jr. is a curator, writer, and teacher of the history of photography. Before moving to Los Angeles, where he has taught at UCLA and USC, he was curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a regular contri ...
.


Books about Maier

*''Vivian Maier: a Photographer's Life and Afterlife''. Chicago:
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, 2017. By Pamela Bannos. . *''Vivian Maier Developed: The Real Story of the Photographer Nanny.'' Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse, 2018. By Ann Marks. . *''Vivian Maier und der gespiegelte Blick: Fotografische Positionen zu Frauenbildern im Selbstporträt.'' Bielefeld, transcript, 2019. By Nadja Köffler. .


Exhibitions

* March/April 2010, Bruun's Galleri, Århus, Denmark. * ''Finding Vivian Maier'', November/December 2010, The Apartment Gallery (Apartment 02), Oslo, Norway. * ''Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer'', 2011,
Chicago Cultural Center The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a Chicago Landmark building operated by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. The Cultural Center houses the city's official reception venue, where the Mayor of Chicago, M ...
.O'Donnell, Nora (December 14, 2010)
"The Life and Work of Street Photographer Vivian Maier"
''
Chicago Magazine ''Chicago'' is a monthly magazine published by Tribune Publishing. It concentrates on lifestyle and human interest stories, and on reviewing restaurants, travel, fashion, and theatre from or nearby Chicago. Its circulation in 2004 was 165,000, l ...
''. Retrieved on January 4, 2011.
* ''Twinkle, twinkle, little star ... '', 2011, Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Hamburg, Germany. * ''Vivian Maier, Photographer'', 2011, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, Illinois. * ''Vivian Maier – A Life Uncovered'', 2011,
German Gymnasium ''Gymnasium'' (; German plural: ''Gymnasien''), in the German education system, is the most advanced and highest of the three types of German secondary schools, the others being ''Hauptschule'' (lowest) and ''Realschule'' (middle). ''Gymnas ...
, London Street Photography Festival, London. * ''Vivian Maier, Photographer'', 2011/12, Hearst Gallery, New York. * ''Vivian Maier – A Life Uncovered'', 2011, Photofusion Gallery, London. * ''Vivian Maier, Photographer'', 2011, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles. * ''Vivian Maier – Hosted by Tim Roth'', 2011/12, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles. * ''Vivian Maier – Photographs'' 2012, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta. * ''Vivian Maier's Chicago'', 2012–2014,
Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street (Chicago) ...
, Chicago, Illinois. * ''A la recherche de Vivian Maier'' (In search of Vivian Maier), 2011, Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur * ''A la recherche de Vivian Maier'' (In search of Vivian Maier), 2011, Gap Library, Gap, Hautes-Alpes, France. ] * ''Lo sguardo nascosto'' (The Hidden Glance), 2012, Brescia, Italy. * ''Vivian Maier'', 2013, Antwerp, Belgium, Gallery51. * ''Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2013, Tampa, FL;
Florida Museum of Photographic Arts The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) is a museum dedicated to exhibiting important photographic art as central to contemporary life and culture. FMoPA also enriches the community by operating outreach programs to educate children and a ...
. * ''Summer in the City'', 2013, Chicago, IL; Russell Bowman Art Advisory. * ''Vivian Maier'', 2013, Shanghai, China; Kunst.Licht Photo Art Gallery. * ''Загадка Вивьен Майер'' (The Riddle of Vivian Maier), 2013, Moscow, Russia; Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography. * ''Vivian Maier: Picturing Chicago'', October 2013, Chicago, IL; Union League Club. * ''Vivian Maier: A Woman's Lens', October 2013, Waltham, MA; Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. * ''Vivian Maier'', 2013/14, Tours, France;
Jeu de paume ''Jeu de paume'' (, ; originally spelled ; ), nowadays known as real tennis, (US) court tennis or (in France) ''courte paume'', is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, ...
, Paris. * ''Certificates of Presence: Vivian Maier, Livija Patikne, J. Lindemann'', 2014, Milwaukee, WI; Portrait Society Gallery. * ''Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows'', 2014, Minneapolis, MN; MPLS Photo Center. * ''See All About It: Vivian Maier's Newspaper Portraits'', 2014, Berkeley, CA; The Reva and David Logan Gallery at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. *''Vivian Maier, Photographer'', 2014, Fribourg, Switzerland; Cantonal and University Library. * ''Vivian Maier: Out of The Shadows'', 2014, Chicago, IL; Harold Washington Library. * "Vivian Maier – Street Photographer", 2014/2015, FOAM Amsterdam, Netherlands * ''O Mundo Revelado de Vivian Maier'',
São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Serb Autonomous Regions (''Srpska autonomna oblast'', SAO), during the breakup of ...
, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015. * Vivian Maier – Street Photographer, 2015, Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy. * Vivian Maier – In Her Own Hands, 2016, Fundació Foto Colectania, Barcelona, Spain. * Vivian Maier – Street Photographer, 2018, WestLicht, Vienna, Austria. * Vivian Maier - Works in Color, 2020, FOAM Amsterdam, Netherlands. * Vivian Maier exhibition in the
Musée du Luxembourg The () is a museum at 19 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Established in 1750, it was initially an art museum located in the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace (the matching west wing housed the Marie de' Medici cycle by Peter Paul Rubens) an ...
in Paris, 2021/2022. * ''Vivian Maier: In Color'', May 8, 2021 – December 31, 2022,
Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street (Chicago) ...
* Vivian Maier - Exhibition Inedita, 2022, Musei Reali Torino, Italy. * ''Vivian Maier - The Self-Portrait and its Double'', 2022, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium. * Vivian Maier: Anthology, 2022, MK Gallery,
Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of Milton Keynes urban area, its urban area was 264,349. The River Great Ouse forms t ...
, UK. * Vivian Maier: ''Unseen Work'', 2024, Fotografiska New York * ''Vivian Maier - Anthology'', 2024, Haus der Fotografie Olten * ''Vivian Maier - Unscripted'', March/April 2025 KP Projects, Los Angeles.


See also

* Angelo Rizzuto * Charles Jones *
Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit (1927–1998) was a Ukrainian Hutsul artist, writer, folk writer, philosopher, folk scientist, ethnographer and dialectologist. She was known as "Homer Hutsul." Life Early life She was born in the family of Stefan Plyt ...


References


External links


John Maloof Collection website on Vivian Maier

Finding Vivian Maier – An Interview with Producer, Co-Director Charlie Siskel
by Stephen Slaughter Head, PostMovie.net, 2014
"Vivian Maier: The Unheralded Street Photographer"
by David Zax, ''Smithsonian'' magazine, 2011
Guide to the John Maloof Collection of Vivian Maier circa 1900-2010
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center

The Vivian Maier photography collection
(color negatives and transparencies) at the
Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street (Chicago) ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maier, Vivian 1926 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American photographers 20th-century American women photographers 21st-century American women American domestic workers American expatriates in France American people of Austrian descent American people of French descent Photographers from Chicago Photographers from New York City Culture of Chicago French photographers Nannies American outsider artists American street photographers American women outsider artists Rediscovered works