Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was born on February 1, 1926 in New York. Daughter of a French mother and an Austrian father. (Although she always hid this information. These and all the information about her life. Those who knew her say that they always thought she was European and had a false French accent). She is one of the most influential photographers of our time after spending a lifetime taking pictures from absolute anonymity. A nanny and live-in maid by profession, she led a wandering life, going from house to house, carrying dozens of suitcases crammed with rolls of negatives to be developed, with photographs she impulsively took while doing her job as a caregiver. Her employers never knew the contents of the suitcases, let alone that she was such a good photographer, although they remember that she always carried a camera with her.

His work was discovered in 2007 by chance by young John Maloof, a photography enthusiast who had been going to flea markets and auctions since he was a child and who, looking for photos of Michigan for a project he was working on, came across his photographs in the auction house across the street from his home. Upon discovering the beautiful photographs on those negatives, he searched the Internet for his name, but found no results. He began to digitize his negatives and each time he found more and more wonderful photos. Realizing that he couldn't do it alone, he contacted the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see if they would help him, but he had no luck. He decided to share them on the Internet. And the response from Internet users was immediate: everyone was amazed by the quality and style of the photos.

Two years later, continuing his interest in the photographer whose spectacular work he was discovering in each new strip of negatives he digitized, he did a second search on the Internet and this time he did find something: her obituary. It was 2009 and Vivian had just passed away. Her discoverer had had a small chance to meet her, because when he discovered her work, she was still alive. but he did not give up. Although he could not tell her that he had found her photos, he needed to know more about her. He began an arduous research work to try to find out where she lived, if she had relatives who could tell him things about her... and, pulling the thread of some receipts that appeared among the negatives and detecting some postal addresses as well as the address of the photographic studio where sometimes the photographer developed her snapshots, was when the surprise came. She discovered that she was neither a journalist nor a professional photographer: that woman with a great talent for visual narrative was a nanny. A nanny by profession, an amateur photographer, who took advantage of her job - babysitting - to spend as many hours as possible in the street taking pictures.

Vivian Maier died without being recognized. The great recognition of her work came thanks to this restless young man, who saw the power of her photography and wanted to make it known to the world. However, Vivian Maier is today one of the greatest exponents of urban photography, with posthumous exhibitions all over the world, several books edited and promoted by the young Maloof and a documentary film that tells her story, with interviews to the children she took care of decades ago (now adults), to the parents of these children who hired her at that time, to the employees of the laboratories where she developed some of her films, and to the employees of the laboratories where she developed some of her films, to the employees of the laboratories where she developed some reels of photos, and to the only distant relative who is still alive, who never knew about the great photographs she took, although she says that as a teenager, when in her town cameras were only seen at communions and weddings, she would go around the countryside with her camera taking pictures of rural workers. Something very unusual at that time. Thanks to John Maloof, this great unknown is in all the history books of photography.