Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier had a difficult childhood

Vivian Maier was born in New York on 1 February 1926. Her parents’ marriage fell apart: Her father could not cope with the multicultural, anonymous environment of the Bronx, fell into alcohol and gambling, and left the family when Vivian was four. Her mother found a place to live with Vivian and her elder brother Carl with the sculptor and photographer Jeanne Bertrand, who, like Vivian’s mother, came from France. It was there that Vivian probably first came into contact with photography. The most important contact partner at this time was Vivian’s grandmother on her mother’s side, who took great care of her grandchildren. Vivian’s mother could not cope with the new living conditions and moved for a time with her daughter back to France, but was equally unable to settle. The brother Carl had stayed behind alone, and went off the rails, consumed drugs, and had to go to prison for a while. 

Money was often short for developing film

Vivian Maier’s difficult childhood had a lasting effect on her, but according to testimony from acquaintances, she showed great creativity and energy as a child. The good relationship with her grandmother ensured that she was able to attend a girls’ boarding school in Queens for a time, but she never had any real perspective of a rounded education or graduation. Vivian thus worked all her life as a domestic servant for wealthy families managing their households and looking after their children. This job was badly paid, but allowed enough free time for her passion, photography, which she pursued on the streets of Chicago with a two-lens Rolleiflex camera. She photographed and filmed people she met in everyday life, had conversations with them about political developments which she recorded on tape, and hoarded countless things in her servants’ quarters that she had collected: bills, tickets, newspaper articles, receipts, trinkets, knickknacks, and junk of all kinds. She also stored a great number of her films because she often lacked the money to develop them.

The photographic estate is today considered a sensation

Vivian Maier kept her life and her photographic work carefully secret, perhaps because she was ashamed of the many breaks in her biography. Occasionally, she even introduced herself under a false name. Towards the end of her life, she was homeless for a time, but with the help of three former protégés, found shelter in an apartment. She went into a nursing home after a fall, where she died on 21 April 2009. Before that, her archive had already been sold because she could no longer afford the rent costs for storage. The businessman John Maloof, an amateur historian who was looking for picture material for a book he had planned, acquired most of the pictures at auction, sold some on Ebay, and after the art critic Allan Sekula explained the artistic significance of Vivian Maier’s work, began a large-scale marketing campaign that led to a legal dispute that has still not been resolved, making Vivian Maier a celebrated icon of photography.