‘I’m a sort of spy.’
Vivian Maier

The splendid 2013 documentary ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ tells the story of the posthumous discovery of one of the twentieth century’s great street photographers.

In 2007 John Maloof, a Chicago-based local historian, was attending an auction of goods repossessed from storage lockers. He bought a box of negatives for $380, having in mind to use some of the photos in a forthcoming book.

On developing the images, Maloof discovered records of Chicago and New York in the ‘50s and ‘60s: quotidian scenes of suburban affluence - beach trips, parades and family days out; depictions of bustling downtown street life – commuters, shoppers, hucksters and hawkers; bleak encounters with inner city poverty. 

Maloof found the name Vivian Maier written on some of the boxes, but was unable to establish anything about her. When he subsequently posted a selection of the photographs online, they became something of a viral phenomenon. The pictures were intimate, affectionate, perceptive and playful. Experts recognised a real talent. 

Maloof traced some of the other purchasers from the storage locker sale, and bought their boxes too. Eventually a Google search picked up Maier’s death notice in the Chicago Tribune. She had passed away in April 2009.

So who was Vivian Maier? Why had her ability hitherto never been recognised? What was the tale behind this treasure trove of imagery?

Gradually Maloof pieced together the story. 

Maier was born in New York in 1926, the daughter of a French mother and Austrian father. She spent her childhood moving between the United States and a small Alpine village where her mother’s family originated. Having been employed for a few years in a New York sweat shop, aged 30 she moved to Chicago's North Shore area. She worked there as a nanny and carer for the next 40 years.

According to her employers and the children she looked after, Maier was intensely private and fiercely independent. She spoke with a clipped French accent, was eccentric and opinionated, formal and strict. Wearing loose clothes, floppy hats and sensible shoes, she marched purposefully about her business. 

Maier had purchased her first Rolleiflex camera in 1952. Since it was held at waist level, the Rolleiflex enabled her to shoot people without looking them straight in the eye. It was less intrusive, more furtive. During the day she took the children on long walking adventures, often beyond the suburbs into the centre of town, all the time on the lookout for interesting subjects. 

‘Street photographers tend to be gregarious in the sense that they go out on the street and they’re comfortable being among people. But they’re also a funny mixture of solitaries… You observe and you embrace and you take in, but you stay back and you try to stay invisible.’
Joel Meyerowitz, Photographer

A young couple kiss on a crowded beach. People gather at the railway station and busy themselves at the supermarket. As they make their way home from church, a loyal spaniel waits expectantly. There are scuffed shoes by the doormat, flip-flops by the pool. There are cigarettes on the dashboard next to Jesus. 

‘Stop and shop.’ ‘Say ‘Pepsi, please.’’ 

Some smartly dressed women chat outside the diner. A pair of old ladies in their Sunday best look on disapprovingly. A man grips a mysterious small parcel behind his back. A stern matron holds onto her hat to save it from the wind. A nervous child clasps his hands to his ears to keep out the noise of the trains. 

Maier photographs herself reflected in the mirror, in the shop window; her shadow cast across the lawn; her bike standing forlorn at the roadside. She is there, but not there.

Let’s check out the street market, nose around the junkshop. A kid on the corner sells wind-up toys, as a blind man plays blues guitar, hoping for small change. A melancholy woman has her hair in curlers. A desolate teenager has his head in his hands. There are unshaven down-and-outs sleeping on park benches, kipping in the waiting room. In tatty clothes they sit on a hydrant, on a stack of newspapers, on a suitcase. Soaking up the sun, waiting for something to happen. There are discarded liquor bottles on the sidewalk, rejected flowers in a refuse bin. 

In 1959 Maier inherited a small amount of money and embarked on a solo trip around the world. She took pictures in Manila, Bangkok, Shanghai, Beijing, India, Syria, Egypt and Italy. When the expedition was over she returned to nannying in the Chicago suburbs. 

During her lifetime Maier took more than 150,000 photographs. And yet she rarely showed her pictures to anyone. And she left the vast majority of her work unprinted.

'The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’
George Eliot

Watching the documentary, one can’t help wondering about hidden talent. Maier went about her art quietly, unobtrusively. She had an extraordinary gift for seeing without being seen. She was not fuelled by reward or recognition. She just wanted to take pictures.

How many Vivian Maiers are out there pursuing a private passion, nurturing a natural gift – unseen, unappreciated, unknown? Perhaps to her it was more important to take the photos than for them to be shared, or even developed. Perhaps that’s just the way she wanted it. But it seems such a waste. 

In the past businesses made their fortunes mining natural resources – gold, oil, precious minerals. In today’s knowledge economy, where value is to be found in original thought and different perspectives, the increasing imperative is to prospect for talent; to search out unusual abilities in unexpected places; to find the diamonds in the rough.

As Maier aged she grew more eccentric. She adopted subtle variations on her name and accent. She piled up newspapers and hoarded boxes of negatives in her loft room - to the point that there was barely a way through and the ceiling creaked under the weight. She could be cruel and quick tempered with her charges.

When Maier was no longer able to find work, she lived in a series of cheap apartments on the edge of town and destitution. In 2008, having slipped on ice and hit her head, she was taken to hospital but failed to recover. The following year she died in a nursing home.

Beyond her photographs we have very little record of Maier’s thoughts and feelings. She is a ghost. She did however make a few audiotapes of conversations with her subjects. In one she reflects on life’s transience.

'Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on. You have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.'

'Baby, baby, baby,
From the day I saw you,
Really, really wanted to catch your eye.
Somethin' special 'bout you
I must really like you,
'Cause not a lot of guys are worth my time.
Baby, baby, baby,
It's getting kind of crazy
'Cause you are taking over my mind.
And it feels like,
You don't know my name.
I swear, it feels like,
You don't know my name.
Round and round and round we go, 
Will you ever know?’

Alicia Keys, ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ (A Keys/ K West/ H Lilly/ J R Bailey/ M Kent/ K Williams)

No. 305