Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits

by Vivian Maier (Photographer), John Maloof (Editor)

Celebrated by The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, American Photo, Town and Country, and countless other publications, the life's work of recently discovered street photographer Vivian Maier has captivated the world and spawned comparisons to photography's masters including Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Walker Evans, and Weegee among others.

Now, for the first time, Vivian Maier: Self-Portrait  presents the fullest and most intimate portrait of the artist herself with approximately 60 never-before-seen black-and-white and color self-portraits culled from the extensive Maloof archive, the preeminent collector of the work of Vivian Maier and editor of the highly acclaimed Vivian Maier: Street Photographer—bringing us closer to the reclusive artist than ever before.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, The United States Of America

120 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2013

About the author

Vivian Dorothea Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer, who was born in New York City and spent much of her childhood in France.[1] After returning to the United States, she worked for approximately forty years as a nanny in Chicago, Illinois. During those years, she took more than 150,000 photographs, primarily of people and architecture of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, although she traveled and photographed worldwide.[2]

Maier's photographs remained unknown, and many of her films remained undeveloped, until her boxes of possessions were auctioned off. A Chicago historian and collector, John Maloof, examined the images and started to post Maier's photographs on the web in 2009, soon after Maier's death. Critical acclaim and interest in Maier's work quickly followed.[3][4] Maier's photographs have been exhibited in the USA, Europe and Asia and have been featured in many articles throughout the world.[5] Her life and work have been the subject of both books and documentary films.

Reviews

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Va čia tai selfiai.


Paslaptingosios ar tiesiog vienišės, Vivian Maier, autoportretų albumas. Tik keletas tradicinių darbų, visi kiti - atspindžiai languose, vitrinose, veidrodžiuose, šešėliuose...
'Is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?' - John Szarkowski

[Mai M Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

بحب الكتب عن التصوير وVivian كانت مميزة واللي خلاها مميزة اكتر ان صورها كانت مركونة لمدة سنين وطلعت للناس من خلال فيلم وثائقي جميل سجلته وهنزله ع قناة عن الفن قريب اوي يارب ميكونش عليه حقوق ملكية 🤭

الكتاب كمان هصوره ع القناة لأني هعمل حلقة عنها 😍👇
القناة ع اليوتيوب لو حد مهتم
@3nelfn

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be in a way the most sensational volume of Maier's work. Private, never seeking fame, she creates 150,000 negatives and stuffs them in a few lockers in Chiacgo, and among them are several of these amazing self-portraits, including some of them that are shadows, some reflections in windows of pictures she is taking. And she almost never smiles or shows any emotion of any kind in these photographs. You look for some keys to her personality or her purposes for her work in them and guess, what, she doesn't reveal much at all of herself in them, seems to me, which in itself is fascinating. I wouldn't say these are all necessarily the best photographs she did in the three volumes I have read from her work this month. I mean, taking pictures of herself was a tiny fraction of the photographs she took… though they often are indeed great,sometimes playful, whimsical, sometimes serious experiments, sometimes amazing portraits of herself as she makes portraits of others. You find yourself unable to take your eyes off these photographs. Really pretty sensational, this story and these images of a woman not wanting to be known as a photographer, seemingly not wanting to be known at all, reclusive, taking all these pictures of herself we only see after her death. Just: wow.

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vivian Maier is never anything short of amazing to me. While I generally prefer her straight-up street photography, it's hard not to love these self portraits. What astounds me is how very present she is in her photography, even though her self portraits don't ever seem to be about ego. She's a tool for her photography. She frames an image in her shadow or reflection. She is framed in a mirror or window. Her shadow points us to something in a photo, or just reminds us that it's more than merely a landscape - there's a person behind that camera.

And what's the most awesome and frustrating - what really points out her brilliance - is that so many of these photos would have been dismissed out of hand if I had taken them. I would have called them flawed. No, I would have worked very hard to keep my presence out of them in the first place. And that's what I love about her. She's completely present in her photos, but she sees through herself. Does that make sense? She sees her image as just another image. A tool to use in her photos. Present and absent all at once. It's the difference between someone who tries to do art, and an artist.

So great.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing collection of self portraits by Vivian Meier, photographer discovered after her death. They’re really amazing. Ranging from the mid-50s to the late 70s, these photographs come from several places in the United States, all urban. Most taken in mirrors, reflections, and one by someone else? So absorbing.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I read of what (little) we know of her and the more I see her work, the more fascinating I find Vivian Maier. Over 150,000 exposures that she never shared with anyone. Why? The introduction to this title explains part of why this is so fascinating to us in a culture that goes for page hits and retweets:

"Vivian Maier's work is extraordinarily different in that it only needed to be made. What magic. A misfit genius."

She created her art just to make it. Nothing more. The self-portraits I found doubly fascinating because they are not about Maier herself. Rarely do we see any kind of expression at all on her face. Instead she's using herself, her own body, as a prop in her composition. Sometimes it's a shadow that draws your eye towards something, sometimes her figure allows you to see past and through the reflection of a window, sometimes it's a body that completes the composition. But it never seems to be about Vivian Maier. I've never seen "selfies" like this before. This was one of my favorites of her published collections.

[Prem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Format: Hardcover
Place read: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Main Library, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
No two self portrais are composed in the same way in these 60 photographs except where Vivian Maier along with her camera is the main subject. There are images where you need to search for her shadow or her reflection but she stamped each with her own style. She never printed her photos they say, then how did she come up with the kind of compositions is a million dollar question. Her expertise in the craft is beyond imagination!

[Debra Schoenberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing. As reclusive as Vivian was, I get the feeling that she did not want to be forgotten. I particularly enjoy her off-kilter sense of humour.

[Amanda up North · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A misfit genius."

One of a heavy armload of Vivian Maier books I lugged home from the library this week.
This one has a few pages of intro text, followed by Vivian Maier self portraiture.
Often brilliant, altogether fascinating.

[Timothy Neesam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She was vehemently private about her motivation to make images, to the degree that very few even knew she was a photographer." -- Elizabeth Avedon, from the the introduction to Vivian Maier: Self-portraits.

Photographer Vivian Maier died in 2009 at the age of 83, leaving behind some 150,000 negatives of street life, mostly in Chicago and New York cities. A reclusive woman who worked as a nanny, Maier published none of her photos and didn't seem to share them with anyone either.

This book cuts a narrow swathe, featuring approximately 60 black-and-white (and a smaller selection of colour) self-portraits. They aren't emotional studies, or pictures of Maier engaging with her surroundings, though they are deliberate, clearly composed with care, with her camera often appearing as a prominent feature in the image.

Maier appears in mirrors, in window reflections, as shadow. She is sometimes the main subject of images, sometimes a shadow over a subject and sometimes so peripheral she can hardly be seen. Occasionally she appears with the children she governed.

On occasion she appears at the back of a scene; deliberately including herself, though rarely engaging directly with the viewer.

The images were selected by Chicago photographer and historic preservationist John Maloof, who almost single-handedly brought Maier's work to public attention.

It's an impressive collection of images, whether you're familiar with Maier's overarching work or are simply interested in the images themselves as self-portraits. The size of the book is not small but there's a lot of white space around the pictures and I wish some of the more detailed images were larger. Overall, it's an exceptional book with a depth of content.

Highly recommended.

[Rosebud · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's weird that the last book I finished in 2017 and the first book I finished in 2018 were ones of photographs. I had completely different reactions. While it was pleasant to look at pictures of Paul McCartney and the other Beatles' lives, that book doesn't even begin to compare to this one of photographs taken by Vivian Maier.

Jim told me about Vivian and the book he read about her. He found a DVD documentary telling the story of how a young man became aware of her photographs and the fascinating story since he discovered them.

This particular book of self portraits not only includes Vivian in each photo but also awakens your imagine of the stories of the people she was photographing. These photos make you wonder about her and the people she photographed, many of them strangers. She had a way of capturing "life" that brings you to emotions you don't expect and you feel like you don't want to turn the page and leave the photo you're seeing.

Unfortunately, most of the 100,000+ photos she took were never printed during her lifetime. If they had been, she would have been rich and well known. I'm putting the book about her life on my to read list.

[Elsabe Retief · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a contradiction! Did she intend all these self portraits as her signature to her work. Did she think about the fact that she had to reveal her identity through her self portraits? Did she make sure that each of the boxes of negatives at least contained one self portrait?
This book could serve very well as "The 101 of imaginative selfies " to our current self obsessed and mostly completely unimaginative culture of people who need to record their own actions!
Has anybody yet calculated how much the development of that 100 thousand photographs attributed to her would have amounted to?

[Suzanne Cowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating book of photos from a woman who should have been famous, but instead died in obscurity. Check out her documentary if you get the chance and definitely check out the other books of her photos.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, but not as compelling as other compilations of Maier's photograph. The impulse of this volume is to try to make sense of who Maier was by looking at how she depicted herself and what that says about her aesthetic and ethical impulses.

[marcali · Rating 5 out of 5]

love her story & work-- wish someone would publish non-portrait photos as well.

[Grg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her photos had a real boldness to them when I saw them in the documentary and on the website. Some of that is lost when viewing them in book form. Still beautiful though.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great photographs. It's great that her worn has been discovered. Too bad it wasn't during her lifetime.

[deleted d · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little boring but she did play with it in interesting ways, I wonder what she was trying to say

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vivian's photos inspire me.

[Alyssa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman is a photographic genius. I can't get enough of her work. Even if I've seen a photograph 30 times, I still feel like I was punched in the gut. She is incredible.

[Ambur Taft · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the story, love her camera, love her photos, and love her shadow!

[Kokeshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just fell in love with the work of Vivian Maier. What a great collection of Maier's work. 5 stars.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading a book about her life, I checked out this book which contained self-portraits. They were remarkable.

[Jolie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesmerizing and haunting, as always.

[Ghazaal B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

اسم این زن رو خیلی وقته که شنیدم. اول در حد یک جمله‌ی یکی دو خطی.
وقفه.
بار دوم، دو سه سال بعد، اقدام کردم به دیدن عکسهاش ولی نیمه‌کاره موند.
این‌بار ولی بعد از دوسال دوباره بهش برگشتم.
تصمیم گرفتم ورودم به دنیاش رو از سلف‌پرتره‌هاش شروع کنم. گذاشتم خودش، خودش رو بهم معرفی کنه، قبل از اینکه دیگران بهم معرفیش کنن.
از عکسهای بی‌ادعاش خوشم میاد. از آنچه که انتخاب می‌کنه برای ثبت کردن [-ِ خودش، در/به واسطه‌ی اون‌ها] خوشم میاد. از بازیش با نور و آینه و بازتاب و سمی‌ترنسپرنسی شیشه‌ها و سایه و رفلکس‌های اشیای براق و بعضا مسطح، در ضمنِ «مستند کردن آنچه در محیط در حال وقوع است» خوشم میاد.
از لباس پوشیدنش و از سادگیش و از حالت موهاش و جهت نگاه‌هاش و چشم‌هاش، در دهه‌های مختلف زندگیش خوشم میاد. از اینکه با نگاه کردن به عکس‌هاش، احساس می‌کردم دارم دفترخاطراتش رو ورق می‌زنم خوشم میاد.
از روند بلوغ قاب‌هاش با گذر زمان هم بسیار کیف کردم.
اکثر عکس‌هارو سر صحنه‌ی فیلمبرداری دیدم. در استراحت‌های کوتاه حین کار. حین تماشاش، کیف کردم و باز، بعد از مدت‌ها، انگیزه‌ی عکس گرفتن گرفتم.
یک کتاب عکس دیگه چه بلایی باید بر سر آدمیزاد بیاره تا رسالتش رو انجام داده باشه؟


پ.ن: بی‌صبرانه منتظر دیدن بقیه‌ی کتاب عکس‌هاشم.

[Pierre-Luc Landry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ce livre est difficile à “évaluer”; autant le texte d’Elizabeth Avedon est insipide et inutile, autant les autoportraits de Vivian Maier sont complets, complexes, détaillés. Ils méritent mieux que cet accompagnement mollasse et indolent. Maier est obsédante; ses photos témoignent de beaucoup plus que du “mystère” constamment ressassé et jamais creusé, par manque d’imagination sans doute, par complaisance également. Un livre léthargique pour une photographe qu’on devine facilement vivante, impérissable puisqu’immortalisée sur sa propre pellicule.

[Bookish Minx · Rating 5 out of 5]

An overall beautiful collection, though some of the selected pictures seem rather far-fetched in terms of "self-portrait" (too many shadow pictures where the shadow is not central to the picture and rather seems to be a co-incidence because as street photos they had to be shot quickly sometimes). But that aside, I really enjoyed the photographs.

[Peter Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something about her photographic vision that just works. If you have seen her contact prints, every frame is a gem (no, seriously, it is truly unreal), and it is a joy looking through her photos. This is no exception, and gets the closest to revealing who Vivian Maier was and how she thought of herself as photographer.

[Bexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Vivian Maier's work. It is just a joy to look at. The black and white is such a contrast to the color photos, but still evoke such a feeling of wonder in me. She was such a delight and I am in awe of her work.

[Laura Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phenomenal images. I just don’t know if I love the words at the start of the book. While there’s nothing offensive said here, I just find it shapes the viewer’s perceptions of the following body of work instead of letting the mind make its own conclusions with the bare imagery.