During her lifetime, she was unknown to anyone as a photographer. Her life story resembles a detective story. There are too many mysteries and unclear questions. Despite the fact that Vivian Maier’s legacy consists of more than 100 thousand negatives, researchers are confident that this is not the entire archive. Part of it is most likely lost.
She could become a newspaper reporter, a journalist, and do what she loved, getting paid for it. Fame would still have overtaken her, even in her old age. But the complete lack of vanity led to the fact that Vivian Mayer worked all her life as a nanny, and spent her last years of her life in a not the best nursing home.
The world would never have known about photographer Vivian Mayer if her work had not accidentally fallen into the hands of a caring researcher. Realtor and freelancer John Maloof had a habit of attending small auctions that sold property from vaults whose owners had stopped paying rent.
In 2007, he purchased a box of negatives at auction for $400. After developing several films, Malouf realized that he had found a real treasure. He went back and bought the remaining boxes. John decided that as many people as possible should know about an unusual photographer and created a site with photos, but in 2008 it was not so easy to promote a new site: for several months no one went to the page. Maloof decided to go the other way: he posted several works on Flickr and created a discussion. Vivian Maier's photographs instantly became popular.
John Maloof claims that at first he did not know the name of the owner of the negatives. Only a year later, after sorting through the archive, he found an envelope with the name Vivian Maier. Maloof began looking for the mysterious photographer, but by that time the woman was no longer alive.
Malouf began to piece together information about the photographer. Her official biography turned out to be not particularly eventful. Vivian Maier was born in 1926 in New York to a French mother and an Austrian father. Her father left the family when Vivian was four years old. Mother and daughter lived in an apartment with a woman photographer, Jeanne Bertrand, who apparently taught the girl how to take pictures. For some time the family lived in France, where relatives of Vivien's mother had a farm.
Vivian finally returned to America in 1951. She settled in Chicago. She worked as a seamstress for some time, but soon decided to become a nanny. Her native language was French, and this circumstance helped her get a well-paid job in respectable Chicago families. She necessarily agreed that she would have a separate room (which would be locked) and days off.
Her pupils and parents remember her as an excellent teacher, although a somewhat reserved woman. The longest - from 1956 to 1972 (16 years!) - she worked in the Ginsburg family, where three boys grew up. When already grown-up Ginsburgs were found by Maloof, they were stunned by the news that their nanny was a great photographer. Her pupils mainly talk about her through the prism of children's perception: how she brought them dead snakes from the forest, was not afraid of frogs and bats, and arranged picnics. In general, she was a wonderful nanny... No wonder she devoted almost forty years to this profession.
Later, the grown-up Ginsburgs, having learned that their aged nanny Vivian was poor and homeless, decided to jointly rent her an apartment, in which she lived for many years until she ended up in a nursing home. She stored her property - several dozen boxes - in rented boxes. When she stopped paying rent (she suffered from memory loss in the last years of her life), her property went under the hammer.
Actually, this is where the biography of nanny Vivian Maier ends, and the biography of another woman begins - the great photographer of the 20th century.
Why Vivian made a secret out of her hobby is still unclear. Most likely, relatives were skeptical about young Vivian’s passion for photography, and in the future Vivian decided not to talk about her hobby.
Her serious passion for photography began when she left France and began to earn money on her own. In the early 50s, Vivian exchanged her first children's camera, a Kodak Brownie, for a professional Rolleiflex. Her work allowed her to film in all her free time. She photographs unassuming street scenes: children, old people, the poor, and less often, wealthy women and men. The frame includes poor neighborhoods, the most ordinary people who often had no idea that they were being photographed. Sometimes, to take a portrait, she asked permission. It was easiest for her to negotiate with the children - there are a lot of them in the photographs.
Without setting any goals for herself, Vivian Mayer captured a portrait of America in the mid-50s. Her gift for observation, sharp eye, sense of composition helped her to make unique shots. She captured American types that you rarely see these days. Elegant black maids, workers, children who walk all day without adult supervision - she did not chase after something unique, did not seek to fix anomalies. Her portraits and genre scenes are just typical: but after half a century, the faces seem beautiful and spiritual, and the boring Chicago streets turned out to be filled with artifacts and sights.
She rarely spent more than one frame on a street scene. Vivian unerringly looked for unique shooting points to take a single shot and move on. Her compositional solutions are ingenious. Vivian Maier is often compared to Andre Kertész. But unlike Kertesz, Vivien did not want to show her work to anyone.
She photographed not only in Chicago. In 1959-1960, having received an inheritance, Vivian traveled to Southeast Asia, Italy, and Egypt. Despite the fact that she left the Ginsburg family for this time, Vivien returned to them. An important role was played by the presence of her own bath, which she turned into a dark room.
Throughout her life, she constantly took self-portraits. Many of them have been preserved; even a monograph with Mayer’s self-portraits has been published. There is no doubt that she liked her own images. Unsmiling and strict, she did not seek to capture the richness of emotions, but was looking for interesting angles for shooting. She filmed her reflection in shop windows and mirrors, a shadow on the sand with a horseshoe crab in place of a heart. Vivian wanted to be remembered, even if it was her own. She tried to develop films with self-portraits, although many of the negatives remained undeveloped.
In the early 70s, Mayer began shooting on color film. During this period, she was little interested in genre scenes, she became an abstract artist, photographing intricate patterns on the bags of passers-by, garbage, clusters of passers-by. Part of the archive over the years has most likely been lost and will not be found. Vivian saved up not only photographic films, part of her archive was newspaper clippings, amateur video and audio recordings, and personal items. John Maloof suspects that most of the property was bought by another person and thrown out as unnecessary.
It can be considered a great success that the Mayer collection fell into the hands of 26-year-old John Maloof. The realtor turned out to be an excellent researcher who devoted his life to the work of the photographer. Malouf not only became Mayer's biographer, he constantly consults with famous photographers about her work. He publishes books, and with his direct participation a film about Vivian was released.
In 2011, the first book "" (Vivian Maier: Street Photographer) was published, in 2012 - Vivien Maier: Out of Shadows (Vivian Maier: Out of Shadows). 16 exhibitions dedicated to the photographer’s work were held in Europe and the USA.
The story of the American photographer Vivien Maier is an interesting case of fame that came to the photographer only after her death. Her carefully collected archive of almost a hundred thousand negatives was never seen, it was discovered by accident, and made a real international sensation.
A detailed and original illustration of the life of American society in the 60s and 70s, funny street scenes and surprisingly characteristic portraits do not leave anyone indifferent. In terms of professionalism, the ability to get close to the model and reveal her personality, Mayer is compared with Robert Frank and Lee Friedlander.
Art is eternal and works outlive their creators, who serve only as "guides" between creativity and the viewer. Unfortunately, Mayer's name only became known after her death, and she did not receive the recognition she deserves. Today, Vivien Meyer is glorified by the shots taken with the Rolleiflex medium format camera, with which she almost never parted. Friends called her "Mary Poppins with a camera" - Vivienne worked as a governess in wealthy Chicago families.
Perhaps because of the gender and social barriers of the mid-twentieth century, a woman did not try to become famous during her lifetime - or tried, but failed. Today's researchers know very little about her personality and history. This also shows the uniqueness of the photographer - only her work speaks for her, we form an impression of the personality through the prism of talent.
Mayer's style is a careful observation of reality and an accurate "snatching" of interesting and eloquent details from the colorful canvas of American life. From her works we can get a complete, three-dimensional picture of what high society and the wealthy classes, among whom the photographer lived, looked and “breathed,” see what scenes unfolded on the streets and parks of Chicago, what the townspeople wore and how they expressed emotions. .
Mayer's photographs are not impartial illustrations, but formed plots that reveal the author as an extraordinary storyteller, bright, with a sense of humor and an active social position. Vivienne shot at least 200 films a year, developing them in her room (she turned it into a darkroom) - this is the level of a full-fledged professional. At the same time, she also had a main job. She had no intention of changing it for a career as a photographer, but she carefully systematized and stored the archive. It was discovered completely by accident.
Accidental discovery, posthumous fame and legal scandals
In 2007, 26-year-old Chicago resident John Malouf decided to write a book about his hometown. A professional real estate agent, he happened upon a warehouse sale where he decided to buy several unowned boxes that were being disposed of due to non-payment for space. After paying $400, he received over one hundred thousand films and negatives and decided to scan them and develop the photographs. Looking at the finished photographs, he immediately realized that there was a treasure in front of him.
The archive contained stunning street photography, 3,000 photographic prints, amateur documentaries on eight- and sixteen-inch film, and tape-recorded interviews with Chicagoans. In addition to the main part bought by John, there were other photographs in the archive - they were sold to Ron Slattery and Randy Prow. They posted several photos on their blogs, but did not cause a public outcry.
That all changed when Malouf posted the photos on Flickr. Having posted several photographs on a reputable photo blog, he immediately received about two hundred offers - he was asked to organize exhibitions, make a documentary about the author and tell her story. John bought the remaining parts of the archive from the co-owners and became the owner of more than 90% of the photographs and the rights to publish them.
Malouf had to spend a lot of effort to find out who took the photographs that caused such a stir among professionals. The name Mayer was written on one of the boxes John bought. He began looking for relatives and acquaintances of the photographer and was able to contact two families in which she worked as a governess. One of them gave Malouf Vivien’s personal belongings - boxes of newspaper clippings, developed photographs and photographic equipment, photograph albums that belonged to her, notes and payment documents. Based on them and the stories of the pupils, it was possible to restore information about the photographer, since John did not find her living relatives.
Malouf began organizing exhibitions of the photographer. The first was held in Norway in 2010, then exhibitions opened in America and other countries in Europe and Asia. A year later, a book about Mayer, Out of Shadows, was published, and three years later, in 2014, a lawsuit was filed against Malouf to protect the rights of the presumptive heir.
Lawyer David Diehl received information that Mayer's cousin France Belle lives in France and, according to US law, has the right to her archive. The lawyer demanded that the commercial distribution of the photos be stopped and stated that the photographs were being used illegally. Despite the fact that the current owners of the archive bought the rights from Vivien’s second cousin, Sylvie Jossin, who was found, they had to get involved in litigation. One of the reasons for the confusing situation with Mayer’s inheritance is the lack of knowledge of her biography.
Biography of Vivien Maier: what the world knows about the brilliant but mysterious reporter
Unfortunately, little is known about the photographer, born in 1926 in New York. She was the daughter of an Austrian man and a French woman; throughout her childhood she traveled between America, Europe and the village of Saint-Bonnet-en-Chansor in the Alps, where she lived with her mother. English language was not native to Vivien, she fully mastered it already in the American period of her life (according to rumors, for this she went to the theater a lot). After her parents' divorce in 1930, Vivien began taking photography lessons from her mother's friend, professional photographer, spent the years of World War II in France, and then, at the age of twenty-five, returned to the United States. In 1960, apparently using proceeds from the sale of a house in the village, she traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia - from Egypt to Taiwan and Indonesia.
She lived in New York for five years and worked in a candy store, and then changed her profession to work as a governess and moved to Chicago. Mayer lived there until her death, raising children in wealthy families for 40 years. Vivien lived next to one of her students for 14 years. The Ginsburg family did not stop communicating with Mayer until her death and even gave her a small apartment in a prestigious area of the city. In addition to this family, Vivien worked for the wealthy Raymonds and even for the famous American presenter Phil Donahue.
Mayer never left the camera, filming social stories about low-income residents of Chicago and high society. While walking with her children, she photographed street onlookers, passers-by and rich acquaintances of her employers posed for her. Always wearing men's trousers, a wide-brimmed hat and formal shoes, she walked around the city with a camera and worked continuously. Pupils recall that she adhered to socialist views, leaned towards feminism and always sincerely told people the truth in their faces.
The photographer died in 2009, in a nursing home, where she was admitted due to a head injury from a fall on ice. She died shortly before her triumph. We will never know how Mayer would have reacted to the 100% well-deserved fame that came.
For outside world Vivian Maier was just a nanny and housekeeper from Chicago. However, her hidden talent as a photographer was only recognized after her death in 2009, when John Malouf bought 100,000 of her negatives at auction and published a book.
Mayer spent most of her life wandering the streets of Chicago with a Rolleiflex camera and producing amazing black and white photographs, which conveyed all aspects of American life in the middle of the last century.
Vivian didn’t receive a penny for her photographs, but it’s simply hard to call her an amateur. She didn’t show her photographs to anyone, no one even knew about her hobby. At the same time, she left a real archive-photo report, which can now be used to compose lectures for students about life, fashion, traditions and culture of that time.
Fame came to amateur photographer Vivian Maier (1926-2009) only after her death. Moreover, the discovery of her work became one of the most significant events in the world of modern photography.
For almost 40 years, Vivian worked as a governess for different families. Her favorite hobby was taking pictures of street everyday life. All of her shots were taken with a good medium format Rolleiflex camera.
Over the course of a year, Vivian Maier shot almost 200 films - that is, in fact, she worked like a good professional.
The publication of the works of the photographer, it seems, was not at all interested. But nevertheless, she carefully preserved her huge archive, numbering more than 100,000 negatives.
This gigantic collection was completely accidentally bought at one of the auctions by historian John Malouf for only $400.
Reliable facts about the life of Vivian Mayer are known very little today. Until the end, the question of even the place of her birth remains unclear.
Some sources say that Vivian was born in France, according to other sources she is a native of New York.
Her mother, Maria Jossod, was French and her father, Charles Mayer, was Austrian. As a child, Vivian moved from France to the United States several times, but where she lived while in France is unknown.
In 1951, when Vivian was 25 years old, she moved to New York and worked for some time in a candy store. In 1956, she found a job as a nanny and devoted the next 40 years to this activity, working for the same family for 14 years.
She spent her weekends walking the streets and taking pictures. Between 1959 and 1960, Vivian traveled to many countries, visiting Thailand, Egypt, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and other countries. And in every city she visited, Vivian took a lot of photos.
Over time, the archive grew rapidly, and Vivian always transported all the boxes in which the materials were stored with her to her new place of work.
So, one of her employers says that he counted 200 boxes that the new governess brought with her.
In addition to photographs and negatives, Vivian kept many old newspapers and audio recordings of conversations she had with some of the people depicted in her photographs.
The films from her archive contain many completely plotless clips - for example, filming from a train window.
Vivian Mayer liked to wear huge wide-brimmed hats and men's trousers. She was a feminist and shared socialist ideas.
Her character was very reserved, but at the same time she somehow miraculously managed to get along well with children.
Towards the end of her life, Vivian Maier became homeless for some time and lived on social benefits.
But the children she once raised, hearing about her plight, raised funds for her, bought her an apartment and paid her bills.
In 2008, at the age of 82, Vivian slipped on ice, fell and hit her head.
She never recovered from her injury and died a year later in a nursing home.
In Chicago there is such a service: storage lockers, for a reasonable fee, take for storage all sorts of things that the owners have nowhere to put, but would be a pity to throw away.
As soon as the owners stop paying fees for storing their “treasures,” they are immediately put up for auction.
At one such auction in 2007, 26-year-old real estate agent John Maloof bought a huge box of old negatives for a small price. Maloof made a blind purchase and at first did not attach any importance to it.
But when he started developing the films, he quickly realized their true value. He went back to the same auction and bought the remaining boxes, which contained several thousand undeveloped films.
John Maloof whole year I sorted through these boxes until I finally came across an envelope in one of them with the name of the owner of this archive.
By searching for “Vivian Maier” on the Internet, John Maloof was only able to find a short obituary - there was no more information. Then Maloof began searching for families where Vivian Maier once worked.
So he managed to collect several more boxes of newspaper clippings made by Vivian, photographic equipment with which she worked, and many developed photographs. In 2011, the Chicago Cultural Center had its first debut exhibition of Vivian's photographs, and Maloof recently published a book about Vivian Maier.
True, now you can find statements that John Maloof knew from the very beginning who owned the pictures, that he bought them while Vivian was still alive, and that he perfectly understood the value he was acquiring. But this is just one version.
We recently talked about a talented photographer from Leningrad, who all her life considered her abilities to be insignificant, and therefore thousands of her photographs were discovered only a few years after her death. The history of world photography knows another talented woman photographer who hid her gift from others all her life - Vivian Maier.
The photographer's name was unexpectedly discovered by former realtor John Maloof, who in 2007 bought boxes of negatives at an auction, where they were put up for sale due to non-payment of storage fees. In total, the archive contained more than 100 thousand negatives, some undeveloped, and about 3 thousand photographic prints. In addition, the collection contained amateur films on 8mm and 16mm film, as well as a large number of tape-recorded street interviews. Already in October 2009, the name Vivian Maier became famous after the publication of photographs on the photo hosting site Flickr, but their author passed away six months before this event.
It was not easy to find out anything about Vivian’s life, because relatives who knew her during her lifetime could not be found.
Vivian Dorothy Mayer was born in New York on February 1, 1926. She grew up in France, but then returned to the States. She first worked in a candy store, and at the age of 30 she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a nanny and caregiver for 40 years. Walking around the city with her children all day long, Mayer constantly photographed street life, without showing the finished photographs to anyone. Thanks to this lifestyle, the photographer received the nickname “Mary Poppins with a camera” from city residents.
Even though Vivian didn't get vocational education, but just took photography lessons from a friend, her photographs amaze with their high level: shooting technique, choice of subject, unusual light, etc. Another feature of her style is that she managed to get close to her characters.
Shortly before Mayer's death, the Ginsburg family, for whom she worked in the 1960s and who never broke ties with their nanny, bought her a small apartment in a good area. The last year of her life, after suffering a head injury on the street from a fall on ice, was spent in a nursing home, where she died on April 21, 2009.
The most interesting street photographerVivian Dorothy Mayer(Vivian Dorothea Maier) was born in New York on February 1, 1926. She then grew up in France, but later returned to the United States. Mayer worked as a nanny in Chicago and during this period she took more than 100,000 photographs. These photographs convey her early vision and understanding of people, cityscapes, and views of the street. The most important aspect for Mayer was the fact that for almost her entire life her work was not exhibited or evaluated anywhere. In fact, no one knew such a talented street photographer existed.
It was only at the end of 2007 that Vivian Maier’s work was discovered by local Chicago historian and collector John Maloof. After this, her work began to rapidly spread throughout the network. Numerous awards and exhibitions around the world followed, but unfortunately, Vivian Maier passed away on April 21, 2009.
After returning from France, Mayer worked in a sweatshop. At the age of 25, she took a job as a nanny for a family of 14 and often roamed the streets of Chicago, taking portraits of people with her treasured Rolleiflex camera. John Maloof discovered Mayer's work quite by accident through an auction. With his highly artistic eye, he saw brilliant photographs from a completely different era.
What makes Vivian Maier's work different?
When you think about it, what's most fascinating about these photographs is the choice of subjects to portrait photography and masterfully played with light.
Expressing your art in street photography is perhaps the only way for everyone to be able to admire your work. And there is a feeling that Mayer’s photographs of this genre are easily understandable to an admiring viewer.
Like many modern street photographers, Mayer not only filled the frame, but also paid attention to the quality of light and emphasized the dignity of the person depicted.
The photographer's courage is palpable as she pushes her beyond her comfort zone to meet strangers on the street. Building relationships within photography is also one of the facets of her work.
The most important portraits are those that stand out in a photographer's portfolio. Mayer's work is bold and brilliant. Her street portraits retain the essence and distinctive charm.
The photographer's work style is inspiring. She talked to the subjects to capture them. Not everyone these days thinks about this detail. This is a form of humble appreciation and a sense of comfort that could be given to the subject.
The composition in these photographs is simple and elegant. Vivian Maier's work is a master class in positioning objects in the frame.
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