Finding Vivian Maier
Yesterday I saw the film, Finding Vivian Maier. It is the previously untold story of a street and portrait photographer. Ms. Maier’s portraits were not staged or styled. Her subjects were often captured surreptitiously as she marched out into to the streets of Chicago with the children in her care. Vivian was a nanny to some of Chicago’s upper middle-class and wealthy families who lived along the North Shore of Lake Michigan. She left her job as a seamstress in New York to become a nanny so she could find ways to be outdoors, to be out in the world yet still hide in plain sight. Vivian was an undercover artist.
“I asked her what she did.” She said, “I’m sort of a spy.”
Vivian was many things. She was described by those who knew her —and no one knew her intimately — as eccentric, reclusive, private, mentally ill, abusive and a probable victim of abuse, a hoarder, a mystery, and an enigma. After her death and the discovery of a mother lode of undeveloped film, slides, personal possessions, 8 and 16 mm movies, cassettes of interviews and personal commentary and ephemera, she is now being exposed following her death as the brilliant street photographer and undiscovered artist she was in life.
Vivian Maier
Self-Portrait ©2014 Maloof Collection, Ltd.
From the film’s official website:
“Finding Vivian Maier is the critically acclaimed documentary about a mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and, discovered decades later, is now among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never before seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.”
Finding Vivian Maier
Movie Poster
“Maier’s massive body of work would come to light when in 2007 her work was discovered at a local thrift auction house on Chicago’s Northwest Side. From there, it would eventually impact the world over and change the life of the man who championed her work and brought it to the public eye, John Maloof.”
“ The story unfolds first as an adventure, later as a mystery, then as near tragedy as the artist kept her work to herself, and finally as something of a triumph, as exhibitions of her work have been selling out throughout the world.” Santa Monica Daily Press
Self-Portrait
Photo by Vivan Maier
©2014 Maloof Collection, Ltd.
I found her story mesmerizing and the mystery of who she was in life to be like Russian Matryoshka dolls. As soon as John Maloof opened one case or box of Maier’s belongings which held a treasure trove of film, slides and ephemera, there was another one inside. Rather than find more answers, he discovered more questions. The documentary provides us with a sketch of who Vivian Maier was, yet her story, the artist and the woman, is still lost except what we find in her work. Photographers, art critics, and museum and gallery owners describe her photographer’s point of view, her composition and framing, and the subjects she chose to shoot, and we still know little about her. The families she lived with tell part of her story, yet even those people who identified as her friend, knew little about her personal life, her desires, aspirations and motivations, her relatives and family of origin, where she was born, was it the States or Europe, was she French or American?
Self-Portrait
Photo by Vivian Maier ©2014 Maloof Collection, Ltd.
Vivian took many self-portraits, yet rather than reveal anything, many were simply the interplay of shadows and light, of reflection and mirrors of her image returning to her. The film and her story, as told through her photographs and the people she encountered in life and those who discovered her in death, reminds me how some people do hide in plain sight, live eccentric lives of quiet reclusiveness, yet encounter and interact with the world through their art, and in Vivian’s case, through the viewfinder.
Finding Vivian Maier is a must see documentary. More importantly, her photographs are worthy of exposure and she recognition for the artist she was. The tragedy is that we will never know the artist, or the woman. Her story remains untold. Though we found Vivian Maier’s work, we’ve lost the person.
Contact Sheet
©2014 Maloof Collection, Ltd.
To read more about Vivian Maier, reviews of the film and to see her work, visit the sites below: