Vivian Dorothea Maier (February 1, 1926[citation needed] – April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer.
Many details of Maier's life are unknown. She was born in New York City, the daughter of Maria Jaussaud and Charles Maier, French and Austrian respectively. She moved between the U.S. and France several times during her childhood, living with her mother in the Alpine village of Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur near to her mother's relations. Her father seems to have left the family for unknown reasons by 1930.
In 1951, at the age of 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked in a sweatshop. She made her way to the Chicago area's North Shore in 1956. And for approximately 40 years, she worked on and off as a nanny, staying with one family for 14 years.
The families that employed her described her as very private and reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, most often with a Rolleiflex camera.
During those years, she took more than 100,000 photographs, primarily of people and cityscapes in Chicago.
Toward the end of her life, Maier may have been homeless for some time. She lived on Social Security and may have had another source of income. The children she had cared for in the early 1950s bought her an apartment in the Rogers Park area of Chicago and paid her bills. In 2008, she slipped on ice and hit her head. She did not fully recover and died in 2009 at the age of 83.
Her photographs remained unknown and mostly undeveloped until they were discovered in 2007 by a local Chicago historian and collector, John Maloof; a 26-year-old real estate agent also president of the Jefferson Park Historical Society in Chicago. While working on a book about the Chicago neighbourhood of Portage Park, he bought Maier's photographic legacy – many negatives still undeveloped –.
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Aquesta és una historia
d’un talent fotogràfic descobert a títol pòstum!
Vivian Maier (1 de
febrer de 1926, Nova York - 21 d'abril de 2009, Chicago ) va ser una fotògrafa
nord-americana aficionada, que va treballar com a mainadera a Chicago durant
quatre dècades .
Va passar la seva
infància entre França i els Estats Units . Amb 4 anys, el seu pare la va abandonar i es va quedar amb
la mare. El 1951 amb 25 anys va anar a Nova York i el 1956 a Chicago, on va
passar la major part de la seva vida.
Maier no revelava molts
dels seus rodets perquè no s'ho podia permetre. Només feia fotos sense que
aparentment li preocupés el resultat final .
Cap al final de la seva
vida va quedar sense habitatge però els 3 fills Ginsberg als quals havia fet de
mainadera de petits li van pagar el lloguer d'un apartament i en van tenir cura
fins a la seva defunció el 2009.
El desembre de 2008 va
caure quan caminava sobre gel i es va colpejar al cap. La van portar a la
residència d'avis a Oak Park on va morir 4 mesos després, als 83 anys
El 2007 John Maloof
estava buscant informació per escriure un llibre d'història sobre Chicago,
anomenat “Portage Park” i en una subhasta va comprar un arxiu de fotografies
per uns 380 dòlars. La casa de subhastes havia adquirit les pertinences d'un
magatzem guardamobles perquè havia deixat de pagar les quotes.
Gràcies a la família
Ginsberg per a la qual Vivian havia treballat durant 17 anys, John Maloof va
poder recuperar 2 calaixos grans que havien de ser tirats a les escombraries.
Contenien correspondència, retalls de diari i rodets fotogràfics en color de
Vivian Maier.
El treball fotogràfic de
Maier mostra escenes de carrer de Chicago i New York en les dècades de 1950 a
1990.
Fonts/Sources:
Street Fotos/Fotos de carrer:
