Finding Vivian Maier

In 2009 an 83-year-old, destitute former nanny named Vivian Maier died in Chicago without a will and with no known heirs.

Vivian Maier’s story might have ended there, but it turns out she was no ordinary nanny. In battered suitcases and jam-packed storage lockers, she left behind more than 100,000 photographic prints and negatives that she took during her long and outwardly unremarkable life. Through an almost unbelievable sequence of fortuitous events, her photographs miraculously escaped a Chicago landfill and eventually became recognized as important works of art, leading Maier herself to achieve posthumous acclaim “as one of the 20th century’s great photographers.”

The whole fascinating story is told in the documentary, Finding Vivian Maier, which is currently available on Netflix and Amazon. 

The film unfolds as a detective story, as we learn more and more about Maier, first from her photographs and earthly possessions, and then from the parents and children who she served as a nanny. One of the documentary's great virtues is that it presents a balanced portrait of the highly eccentric Maier. It is a riveting and engrossing account of one of the most interesting characters and unique stories of 20th century America.    

Predictably, the question of who owns Maier’s photographs has given rise to litigation that remains unresolved. As Maier’s story gained international renown, Cook County, Illinois asserted legal control over her estate in 2014. Last year the estate's public administrator brought a copyright infringement action against Jeffrey Goldstein, one of the first collectors to discover Maier’s photographs and recognize their value. The public administrator accused Goldstein of illegally profiting from Maier’s estate and alleged that he sold many of the negatives to a Toronto art gallery, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities. In November 2017, a federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois denied Goldstein’s motion to dismiss the case. The court’s memorandum and order, which includes some of the interesting factual background to the case, is available here.

Notwithstanding the interesting legal issues raised by Maier’s immense photographic legacy, the documentary focuses on the most compelling part of the story: Vivian Maier herself. Her mysterious and singular life is well worth exploring if you are looking for something to watch this weekend. You can also view at the Maloof Collection's Vivian Maier website Maier's striking photographs of the people, places, and things she came across during her inconspicuously remarkable life.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Those are indeed remarkable photographs on the website (until your post, I knew nothing about Maier!), reminding me why I prefer, generally speaking, black and white photographs to color ones (with films as well), a preference I've never been able to quite understand, let alone explain. Her work exemplifies, for this viewer, an aesthetic—or perhaps better, artistic—variation on the theme of spiritual humanism, where “humanism” refers to a non-religious (hence not ‘anti-religious’) orientation qualified by a notion of spirituality that is understood more or less along the following lines, which possess some family resemblance to religious expressions and incarnations of spiritual life:

(i) “[A]t the richer end of the spectrum [of spirituality], we find the term used in connection with activities and attitudes which command widespread appeal, irrespective of metaphysical commitment or doctrinal allegiance. Even the most convinced atheist may be prepared to avow an interest in the ‘spiritual’ dimension of human existence, if that dimension is taken to cover forms of life that put a premium on certain kinds of intensely focused moral and aesthetic response, or on the search for deeper reflective awareness of the meaning of our lives and of our relationship to others and to the natural world.” — John Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension: Religion, Philosophy, and Human Value (2005)

(ii) In Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World (2009) the Indian (or Indic) psychoanalyst and writer Sudhir Kakar reminds us that “Spirituality, like culture, has many definitions and yet manages to give a sense of familiarity to most of us. For me, the spiritual occupies a continuum from moments of self-transcendence marked by loving connection to an object—nature, art, visions of philosophy or science, the beloved in sexual embrace—to the mystical union of saints where the sense of the self completely disappears. The spiritual, then, incorporates the transformative possibilities of the human psyche: total love without a trace of hate, selflessness carved out of the psyche’s normal self-centeredness, a fearlessness that is not a counter-phobic reaction to the fear that is an innate part of the human psyche.”

(iii) From the neurosurgeon and philosopher Grant Gillett: “Spirituality lifts our eyes from the possibilities defined by the everyday and economic. The divine wind recalls the breath that gives us life and the cleansing water that allows healing and refreshment in the arid wastes of suffering is a figure with meaning that goes beyond the material. In the most unlikely places we find loving and transformative touches, that are the things of the spirit in that they are ways not only of understanding but also beatifying what we do, however bloody, messy and unromantic it is. We are beset by directives and discourses that reduce, demean, and obscure our humanity, that are not noble, uplifting, inspiring, and fulfilling. We can render life in operational (or narrowly functional) terms and make it tolerable through escapism and pleasure but there is another way. We live and love in a world where real tragedies happen, real joy is found, and real connections are forged through time and across barriers of culture and position. In those things we discover the resonance in ourselves of inscriptions, utterances, and works that deepen our understanding.” — Grant Gillett, Subjectivity and Being Somebody: Human Identity and Neuroethics (2008)

[Bill Turnier]

Thanks. Her photos are among some of the best I have ever seen. Nothing beats Black and White photography.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Patrick. I first heard of Vivian Maier a few years back in either a New York Times or a New Yorker article. I don't remember which. In any case, I didn't think anything of her story again until last weekend when I stumbled across the documentary on Netflix. Now I'm hooked on her story and her photographs! Have a great weekend.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comments, Bill. I love black and white photography too, and Maier had such an amazing eye for telling a story in a single photograph. Have a great weekend.