Discovering the great and mysterious photographer Vivian Maier

While reading “Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny,” by Ann Marks, I couldn’t help but thinking what would’ve happened if Maier had lived long enough to use an iPhone 13 Pro and send her photos to the Cloud. Likely, the incredible photography of Maier would’ve been lost forever.

Maier’s body of work — more than 140,000 photographic images, mostly unprinted and not developed until after her death in 2009 — could have easily been lost forever if it wasn’t for artist-picker John Maloof, who rescued her images from an auction of storage units that were in arrears.

Maier was a nanny who worked in the Chicago area for decades. During her time off, Maier melded into the streets to photograph everyday people, graffiti, celebrities, streetscapes and herself. 

Her mental health deteriorating, Maier failed to pay her rent on several storage units, which led them to being auctioned off. Fortunately, Maloof won the bid on some of Maier’s boxes and discovered within them the lifetime work of an amazing self-taught artist. Realizing the importance of this work, Maloof contacted the winning bidders of Maier’s other lots and convinced them to sell him the contents. In her book, Marks does an admirable job of describing the photographic works of Maier, but also spends an equal amount of time and gravity in exploring who this unusual woman was and how she wound up in the canon of great American street photographers.

Marks enters the scene several years after the collection is discovered, after watching the award-winning documentary “Finding Vivian Maier,” which Maloof produced. Marks, who recently retired, was a marketing expert who knew how to drill down to discover the most interesting tidbits about people.

After contacting Maloof and an additional collector, Marks was given unlimited access to the 140,000 images, which she would use to piece together the life of Maier as she aged and devolved into an active hoarder.

Using some advanced genealogical skills and educated hunches, Marks slowly pieces together the tumultuous family history of Maier and explores how her background may have led to her later years of hoarding. Although born in U.S., Maier moved with her mother to France, where she lived until she was 12 before returning to America. Marks discovered that for most of her adult life Maier was estranged from her family.

Marks said more than 60 individuals who knew Maier helped her piece together the photographer’s complex life. 

Marks’ skills as a researcher became more valuable as Maloof and other owners of Maier’s photographs became enmeshed in copyright law. The French copyright law was cleared almost immediately, but due to what the author believes was the naivete of Maloof, the U.S. copyright is still being disputed and Cook County Court oversees Maier’s estate. “The key to Maier’s past was her brother; finding him and tracing his life was critical,” Marks said. 

Although not a photographer or a photo critic, Marks does a fabulous job in describing and categorizing the vast work of Maier and how her choice of subjects evolves over time, perhaps foreshadowing her mental illness. Toward the end of her life, the line between Maier’s hoarding and photography tend to blur together as she takes copious photographs of hoarded newspapers.

In her book, Marks also tells the story of Maier the nanny, and how she is seen through the eyes of the families she served. Generally, her nanny skills were not commensurate with her photographic talents, and most families reported a woman who was just plain strange. They made this observation not only from some of the photographs she presented them, which was a rare act, but also her often strict and cold interaction with their children.

Marks discovered that Maier has the immense talent to capture the magic moment of photography. “Her best photographs are single frame,” she said. One of the photographs Marks admires the most is of a young woman in front of the New York Public Library, which appears to have been shot from a moving bus.

Photo geeks will want to know what cameras Maier used. In her book, Marks details a few — including the simple box camera, a Rolleiflex and a Leica. It is amazing to contemplate how, while using what many photographers consider a clumsy camera, Maier was able to capture such stunning photographs. The bulky Rolleiflex, which you hang from your neck and look down into a viewfinder with the image in reverse, may have helped hone Maier’s skills. Once you take a single frame, advancing the film is clumsy and the magic moment is gone.

Although Maier has now became famous worldwide and is compared to some to the great photographers, such as Gary Winogrand, Weegee, Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cunningham, her work has not garnered a major show in the U.S. In our conversation, Marks suggested that American art museums tend to ignore photographs that were not originally printed by the photographer. There is an exhibit of Maier’s color photography at the Chicago Art Museum.

Support City Pulse  -  Donate Today!