Vivan Maier was one of the best street photographers no one’s ever heard off, until one lucky kid found 100,000 of her negatives. Nanny by day, and brilliant photographer by later that day, Maier privately captured decades of Chicago’s history. She was also a hoarder, a hermit and just a little bit strange.
She hid everything.
Comprised of interviews with the nanny’s former “children” homemade documentary films and audio recordings, Finding Vivian Maier looks positively essential.
Taking snapshots into the late 1990′s, Maier would leave behind a body of work comprising over 100,000 negatives. Additionally Vivian’s passion for documenting extended to a series of homemade documentary films and audio recordings. Interesting bits of Americana, the demolition of historic landmarks for new development, the unseen lives of ethnics and the destitute, as well as some of Chicago’s most cherished sites were all meticulously catalogued by Vivian Maier.
A free spirit but also a proud soul, Vivian became poor and was ultimately saved by three of the children she had nannied earlier in her life. Fondly remembering Maier as a second mother, they pooled together to pay for an apartment and took the best of care for her. Unbeknownst to them, one of Vivian’s storage lockers was auctioned off due to delinquent payments. In those storage lockers lay the massive hoard of negatives Maier secretly stashed throughout her lifetime.
