Vivian Maier: Perhaps The Most Remarkable Street Photographer of the 20th Century

Vivan Maier was discovered by John Maloof, a Northwest Chicago realtor, when he purchased a foot locker full of negatives at an auction in hopes of finding some historical photos for the book he was co-writing on the history of Portage Park. However, after sorting through some of the negatives, Maloof and co-author Daniel Pogorzelski decided there was nothing relevant for the book and the foot locker of negatives were stashed away in the closet; out of sight but never out of mind.

Maloof’s curiosity finally got the the best of him and after some time sitting in the closet, he took out the trunk and started looking at the negative images in a whole new light. What he found was an untold story of an unknown street-photographer, and for whatever her reasons never sharing her photographs with with outside world.

With each negative strip, Maloof became more curious about who this Vivan Maier was and why no one knew anything about this person. Even without any experience in knowing what technically makes a photograph good, Maloof knew that he was looking at some very special photos. Not just for their historical significance, but also the art and talent that each photo exemplified.

Maloof continued to acquire more negatives, as well as undeveloped film, from other buyers at the original auction and eventually collected about 90% of Vivian Maier’s work, or 100,0000 to 150,000 negatives, prints, rolls of films, home movies, audio tapes and other miscellaneous personal items. Another collector, Jeffrey Goldstein, managed to accumulate the rest. In October 2009, not knowing what to do with all he collected, Maloof shared a selection of photographs on HCSP (Hardcore Street Photography) Flickr group which was met with a viral interest. This lead to further research and eventually an Oscar-nominated documentary Finding Vivian Maier (2014).

Currently the Maloof Collection of Vivan Maier’s work is on touring exhibitions that are coordinated through the Howard Greenberg Gallery. To find out where current and upcoming exhibitions and events will be you can visit the Maloof Collection website.

John Maloof, thank you.
Thank you for sharing Vivian Maier’s story with us.