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When John Maloof purchased a stash of old negatives at an antique auction, he was just hoping to score a few choice shots for his book, a photo history of Chicago's northwest side. Instead, Maloof discovered one of the most extensive photographic treasures ever to be unveiled: The stunning street photography of Vivian Maier, a name with no recognition.
In total, Maloof has acquired 100,000+ negatives and 3,000+ prints, and most have never been seen by anyone, not even by Vivian Maier herself.
When I'd first heard the Vivian Maier story from my cultural multi-vitamin VSL a few weeks ago, I quickly dropped whatever I was working on and spent a good hour losing myself in Maier's stunning photographs. (Maloof has set up a blog to highlight her works and his efforts at presevering and displaying them.)
The anonymous portraits, indelible street scenes and intimate moments captured through her Rolleiflex lens reveal the many facets of 50s/60s/70s Chicago -- fashionable, harsh, charming and real. Maier was the ultimate witness to so many forgotten scenes -- a businessman napping in his car, a child crying unnoticed, a crumpled curbside bum, a dead pigeon in the trash, a smoking mother scolding her son. These riveting slivers of life captured through Maier's skilled eye are seemingly endless. That an anonymous French nanny's name is now being spoken alongside photographic legends like Walker Evans and Robert Frank indicate Maier's level of talent. Clearly, Maier's lone wolf existence served her well.
Initially, Maloof's grab-bag bounty came without any labeling or clue about the original owner. Maloof eventually found Maier's name scratched on a label and asked the auction house if he could get in touch with her. (The photos had sparked his own interest in photography and he was innocently seeking tips on how to improve his skill.) He was told the woman was ill so Maloof let her be.
But after nearly a year of digging through her photos, Maloof decided one day to google Vivian Maier's name. Just one entry popped up: Maier's obituary in the Chicago Tribune, posted the day before. Four months after taking a tumble on the ice, Vivian Maier had passed away at age 83 in April 2009, without knowing that anyone had seen her incredible photographs. (Google now has 609,000 listings for 'Vivian Maier.')
"My vision is to put Vivian in the history books."
--John Maloof
Maier -- by all accounts, a very private woman -- had evidently gotten behind in payments on her storage locker. And so the contents (mostly medium format negatives, thousands of prints, and countless undeveloped rolls of film) were donated to the auction house. Soon after, Maloof came along, spotted the immense stash, and paid $400 for the entire contents. (Later, he acquired other personal belongings, like big hats, funky shoes, photography books and tape recordings.)
"It's almost like Mary Poppins, right?"
--John Maloof, speaking to CBS News re: Vivian Maier
Maloof, a real estate agent with no photography experience, admittedly didn't know enough to know what he had, so he consulted others that did. In 2009, he posted a few of Maier's shots on Flickr, asking for opinions and advice:
"I purchased a giant lot of negatives from a small auction house here in Chicago. It is the work of Vivian Maier, a French born photographer who recently past away in April of 2009 in Chicago, where she resided. I opened a blogspot blog with her work here; www.vivianmaier.com.
I have a ton of her work (about 30-40,000 negatives) which ranges in dates from the 1950's-1970's. I guess my question is, what do I do with this stuff? Check out the blog. Is this type of work worthy of exhibitions, a book? Or do bodies of work like this come up often?
Any direction would be great."
--johnmaloof, in a posting entitled, "What do I do with this stuff (other than giving it to you)?" asking for advice on Flickr, 10/9/09
By the next day, he had over 200 emails from around the world, including offers for books, exhibitions and documentaries. Once Maloof realized what a unique treasure he'd stumbled onto, he got moving; Maier's first exhibition was held in Oslo, Norway, December 2010.
The story of Vivian Maier's life is shrouded in mystery and Maloof
