Vivian Maier Exhibit in Chicago

A photographer friend just pointed me to the work of Vivian Maier, a Chicago nanny who was also a street photographer from the 1950s until the '90s. It appears she shot just for herself -- no one knew of her work, and her negatives, numbering over 100,000, were auctioned off in boxes after her death. (There were also 20,000-30,000 rolls of undeveloped film and thousands of prints.)

A young Chicago real estate guy named John Maloof bought one of the boxes at a storage locker auction, then searched out most of the boxes that had been bought by other people. He and a friend have been scanning the negatives and posting many to a blog he set up. This news story from a Chicago television station gives a good idea of how it happened; a documentary is also in the making.

One of the things that first struck me about Maier's work was its range.


There are compositions that are formally beautiful...


...and humanly scaled.


Many provide glimpses of the past.

There is a strain of humor, too:







Maier mostly shot in black and white, but some of her work was in color. This is one of my favorite images:


The first U.S. exhibit of a small part of Maier's work just opened at the Chicago Cultural Center; it runs through April 1. I hope to get down there to see it early this spring.

Maloof is raising money for his Vivian Maier documentary on Kickstarter, and to support the development of the film and scanning of the negatives.



Jason Kottke wrote about Maier back in 2009, but I wasn't paying attention. Another Maier enthusiast, Jeff Goldstein, has acquired Maier's pre-1950s work, which was shot in Europe.