Hans Berkhout, a friend living in Calgary, Canada, sent me a clipping a New York Times article about an unknown nanny, Vivian Maier, who had lived in Chicago. This seems to be an odd detour, but Hans is one of the last dedicated Leica-photographers who’s my link with classic black and white side of the photography world, and keeps me posted on photographers that might interest me. That’s how he sent the piece on the nanny; he really is a valued correspondent. Reading his story of the nanny I slipped back to the black and white world of Al Capone, a soft-core Weegee. The photos in the NYT clipping gave an altogether different impression. A nanny, what could one expect? Would you be prepared for amazement?
The photos appeared to have been made by an originally French girl, in the fifties and sixties, not in Paris, not by Doisneau, nor by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, or William Klein, but by the notably hitherto unknown nanny, Vivian Maier, in Chicago. The text in the article makes clear, how this all came about.

John Maloof is preparing a book about Vivian.
“Vivian came here from France in the early 1930's and worked in a sweatshop in New York when she was about 11 or 12. She was not Jewish but a Catholic, or as they said, an anti-Catholic. She was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person. She learned English by going to theaters, which she loved. She wore a men's jacket, men's shoes and a large hat most of the time. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show to anyone.
I met with two of the people Vivian was a nanny for in the 1950's and early 1960's. They gave me some information that contradicts what I heard from other sources and those sources are accurate. But, all in all, she is still somewhat of a mystery, even to them.
I have many very interesting stories and peculiar facts about Vivian but I'll wait to share them in the book. If all goes well, I'll share the specifics shortly.”

It all started when John Maloof acquired a box of negatives.
“I acquired Vivian's negatives while at a furniture and antique auction while researching a history book I was co-authoring on Chicago's NW Side. From what I know, the auction house acquired her belongings from her storage locker that was sold off due to delinquent payments. I didn't know what ‘street photography’ was when I purchased them.
It took me days to look through all of her work. It inspired me to pick up photography myself. Little by little, as I progressed as a photographer, I would revisit Vivian's negatives and I would ‘see’ more in her work. I bought the same camera and took to the same streets soon to realize how difficult it was to make images of her caliber. I discovered the eye she had for photography through my own practice. Needless to say, I am attached to her work.
After some researching, I have only little information about Vivian. Central Camera (110 year old camera shop in Chicago) has encountered Vivian from time to time when she would purchase film while out on the Chicago streets. From what they knew of her, they say she was a very ‘keep your distance from me’ type of person but was also outspoken. She loved foreign films and didn't care much for American films.”

Many photos of children, naturally.
“Some of her photos have pictures of children and often times it was near a beach. I later found out she was a nanny for a family on the North Side whose children these most likely were. One of her obituaries states that she lived in Oak Park, a close Chicago suburb, but I later found that she lived in the Rogers Park neighborhood.
Out of the more than 100,000 negatives I have in the collection, about 20-30,000 negatives were still in rolls, undeveloped from the 1960s-1970s. I have been successfully developing these rolls. I must say, it's very exciting for me. Most of her negatives that were developed in sleeves have the date and location penciled in French - she had poor penmanship.
I found her name written with pencil on a photo-lab envelope, and decided to 'Google' her about a year after I purchased these, only to find her obituary placed the day before my search. She passed only a couple of days before that inquiry on her.
I wanted to meet her in person well before I found her obituary but the auction house had stated she was ill, so I didn't want to bother her. So many questions would have been answered if I had.”

Vivian Maier was a French New Yorker.
“What is now known about Ms. Maier,” wrote David W. Dunlap in his article “New Street Photography, 60 Years Old’ in the New York Times section Lens, “is that she was born in New York in 1926, lived in France (her mother was French) and returned to New York in 1951. Five years later, she moved to Chicago, where she worked for about 40 years as a nanny, principally for families in the North Shore suburbs. On her days off, she wandered the streets of New York and Chicago, most often with a (square format) Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera. Apparently, she did not share her pictures with others. Many of them, she never saw herself. She left behind hundreds of undeveloped rolls. Even if you don’t think Ms. Maier has the makings of a minor master from the mid-20th century whose work can now be appreciated, you’ll probably be affected by at least a few of her photos. And if you’re nearing 60 and grew up Chicago, you’re almost bound to feel - as I do - that a precious past has been rescued that we didn’t even know existed; thousands of blinks of the civic eye, tens of thousands of beats of the public heart. Maloof is now principal cheerleader in the effort to find a niche for Ms. Maier at the pantheon of modern photography. He is only about one-tenth of the way into the task of scanning and archiving 100,000 negatives of hers in his possession, working with his friend Anthony Rydzon. And they have yet to develop several hundred rolls of black-and-white film and about 600 color rolls.”

Jeffrey Goldstein is active with another part of the estate.
”After John Maloof hit upon the photos, or the rolls of film rather, I met Maloof,” says Jeffrey Goldstein, “and I understood that a few smaller portions of the collection had been purchased by others. In time I was able to acquire 57 photographs from Ron Slattery, one of the buyers. Rumors have it that that someone with a larger portion had disappeared from Chicago with his part of the collection…  whereabouts unknown.” Read the story! http://vivianmaierprints.com/the-story

The world has to wait some time until a book is published and exhibitions are organized. The photos in most books on street photography are shot in New York. Most visitors from Europe first go to New York. So for many Europeans the cityscape of Chicago is yet to be discovered. Meanwhile Vivian Maier’s photos have been compared with the work of Harry Callahan, or Robert Frank, and how about some other notable female, top-notch photographers who come to our mind, like some in the Magnum Group and those outside Magnum: Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus Eve Arnold, Ruth Bernhard, Margaret Bourke-White, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nan Goldin, Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibovitz, Helen Levitt, Mary Ellen Mark, Lee Miller, Tina Modotti, Inge Morath, Cindy Sherman.

On April 15, 2011 a much talked about exhibit was held at Russell Bowman Art Advisory in Chicago, in addition to the successful show John Maloof had at the Cultural Center in Chicago. Vivian Maier is becoming known to the world.
(http://vivianmaierprints.com/exhibitions/russell-bowman-art-advisory).
Next step to becoming world-famous is the first book to be published.
Vivian Maier Prints Inc.: http://vivianmaierprints.com/

December 22, 2010 - Vivian Maier - Chicago Tonight Video - WTTW: http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,8,80,32&pid=A1hO97qcWo7ViDL_rWniVH2LakYxNa7J

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/