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Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife
“Look[s] past the mystique of the ‘eccentric nanny with a camera’ to tell the true Maier story . . . [An] extraordinary work.” —Library JournalWho was Vivian Maier? Many know her as the reclusive Chicago nanny who wandered the city for decades, constantly snapping photographs, which were unseen until they were discovered in a seemingly abandoned storage locker. They revealed her to be an inadvertent master of twentieth-century American street photography. Not long after, the news broke that Maier had recently died and had no surviving relatives. Soon the whole world knew about her preternatural work, shooting her to stardom almost overnight.But as Pamela Bannos reveals in this meticulous biography, this story of the nanny savant has blinded us to Maier’s true achievements, as well as her intentions. Most important, Bannos argues, Maier was not a nanny who moonlighted as a photographer; she was a photographer who supported herself as a nanny. In Vivian A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife, Bannos contrasts Maier’s life with the mythology that strangers—mostly the men who’ve profited from her work—have created around her absence. She shows that Maier was extremely conscientious about how her work was developed, printed, and cropped, even though she also made a clear choice never to display it. She places Maier’s fierce passion for privacy alongside the recent spread of her work around the world, and explains Maier’s careful adjustments of photographic technique, while explaining how the photographs have been misconstrued or misidentified. Bannos also uncovers new information about Maier’s immediate family, including her difficult brother, Karl—relatives once thought not to exist. This authoritative biography shows that the real story of Vivian Maier, a true visionary artist, is even more compelling than the myth.“An excellent book that reads like a mystery novel . . . Wonderful and engrossing.” —Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, author of The Business of Celebrity“It’s a portrait as direct as any of Maier’s, and what a distinct pleasure it is to meet her gaze again.” —The New York Times“This book is by far the finest yet published on the artist. I believe it will become a classic in the field.” —Art in America
368 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 22, 2022
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About the author
Pamela Bannos
4 books4 followersPamela Bannos is an artist and researcher who utilizes methods that highlight the forgotten and overlooked, exploring the links between visual representation, urban space, history, and collective memory.
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October 5, 2017
My review for the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...
In her groundbreaking biography "Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife," Pamela Bannos offers an exhaustively researched and engrossingly written examination of the life and work of the enormously talented and intensely private American photographer whose images of life in the 20th century have captured countless imaginations in the 21st.
Many fans know — or think they know — the general outline of the mystery of the late Vivian Maier and her so-called discovery: the secretive nanny of Chicago's North Shore and Rogers Park with murky connections to France who died poor and obscure in April 2009, leaving behind literal tons — "more than four tons of stored boxes" — of photographs, negatives, undeveloped film and other ephemera, which such men as John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Jeffrey Goldstein acquired and began to circulate, leading to her posthumous viral fame.
Yet just as a photograph can give the impression of truth without revealing an image's complete context, this fragmentary emergence of Maier's biography and work has led to an incomplete, incorrect and in some cases unfair perception of the woman herself and the merits of her output.
Luckily, Bannos, a faculty member in Northwestern University's Department of Art, Theory and Practice, sets out to offer a "counterpoint, a counternarrative, and a corrective to the public depiction of Vivian Maier." She makes the convincing case that "Her earliest known photographs reveal a confident and informed photographer — not a 'street photographer' or a 'suburban nanny photographer,'" thereby illustrating that Maier and her photography "were all of that and much more."
Indeed, because of the way Maier's work came into the public view after the contents of her derelict storage units were sold at auction to people who didn't know Maier or even what they were buying, she has for years been more of an object than a subject in what's supposed to be her own story. Throughout the book, Bannos gives a thorough account of how "mansplaining Vivian Maier contributed to her mythologizing." In turn, she provides a much-needed alternative to these largely reductive and romanticized myths.
As her subtitle suggests, Bannos deftly weaves Maier's chronological biography — from her tumultuous childhood in New York City and France through jobs in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Chicago as well as many trips across the United States and abroad — with the afterlife of the work she left behind. This multilayered structure results in a fascinating and balanced look at questions of artistic authority, appropriation, legacy and copyright.
What emerges in these compelling pages is a portrait of a woman who endured a chaotic, difficult and impoverished childhood to become an independent adult, committed to self-invention and self-determination. Bannos doggedly traces Maier's family tree back to France's Champsaur Valley, where her mother, Marie Jaussaud, had been born illegitimately, fathered by a man named Nicolas Baille who did not officially acknowledge her as his daughter until she traveled there with young Vivian in 1932. Bannos notes that "A struggle with naming and validation permeates the Jaussaud women's legal documents as they hid the shame of their illegitimacy." It seems as though this genealogical convolution and secrecy likely had much to do with the adult Maier's caginess and fluidity in regards to her own name and background.
Bannos also reveals that while many of Maier's photographs give the impression of Maier as a solitary rover of the streets who had a hard time interacting with people, this was not actually the case. As her 1951 series involving "three dark-haired Italian sisters" named Serafina, Beatrice and Anna Randazzo indicates, she at least occasionally conducted planned portrait sessions.
Writing of a trip to Cuba on which Maier shot a series featuring "a racially mixed, orderly mass of children and adults" at a local school, Bannos notes that Maier's ability "to organize and achieve cooperation in such a mingling of individuals is a testament to her ease and comfort in a broad range of environments."
Moreover, Maier was not so friendless as Maloof and others have portrayed her. In one of the book's many charming photographic plates, Bannos includes an image of Maier at Staten Island's South Beach in the summer of 1952. There, she stands smiling on the sand next to her friend, an older woman named Emilie Haugmard, both of them in bathing suits, illustrating Bannos' observation that Maier "gravitated toward women her grandmother's age as photo subjects and friends."
Refreshingly, Maier as Bannos presents her is not the cartoon of the kooky nanny savant depicted in such accounts as Maloof's well-intentioned but under-informed Academy Award-nominated documentary "Finding Vivian Maier." Rather, Bannos reveals Maier to be a smart, deliberate, well-read, well-traveled and dedicated practitioner of her chosen art. Maier was not some wacky outsider who accidentally stumbled into some great shots; an indefatigable "visual omnivore," she knew what she was doing and practiced her craft with intelligence and verve.
Bannos quotes Rose Lichter-Mark in The New Yorker on how, unfortunately, "Finding Vivian Maier shows that the stories of difficult women can be unflattering even when they are told in praise. The unconventional choices of women are explained in the language of mental illness, trauma, or sexual repression, as symptoms of pathology rather than as an active response to structural challenges or mere preferences."
A good biographer must strike a balance between passion and impartiality. They must feel strongly enough about their subject to convey that subject's life in a comprehensive and comprehensible way to a general audience, but they must also resist the tendency toward either a hagiography or a hatchet job.
Using an approach that is calm and careful, Bannos offers a look at Maier that is complex and humanizing, but never sanctifying or belittling.
"She cultivated an air of mystery, but she no longer seems like a 'mystery woman' to me," writes Bannos of Maier. By the end of this impressively documented and nuanced page-turner, Maier will no longer be a mystery woman to the reader either. Instead, a much richer and more valuable portrait emerges: that of a gifted and methodical artist and a multifarious human being.
In her groundbreaking biography "Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife," Pamela Bannos offers an exhaustively researched and engrossingly written examination of the life and work of the enormously talented and intensely private American photographer whose images of life in the 20th century have captured countless imaginations in the 21st.
Many fans know — or think they know — the general outline of the mystery of the late Vivian Maier and her so-called discovery: the secretive nanny of Chicago's North Shore and Rogers Park with murky connections to France who died poor and obscure in April 2009, leaving behind literal tons — "more than four tons of stored boxes" — of photographs, negatives, undeveloped film and other ephemera, which such men as John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Jeffrey Goldstein acquired and began to circulate, leading to her posthumous viral fame.
Yet just as a photograph can give the impression of truth without revealing an image's complete context, this fragmentary emergence of Maier's biography and work has led to an incomplete, incorrect and in some cases unfair perception of the woman herself and the merits of her output.
Luckily, Bannos, a faculty member in Northwestern University's Department of Art, Theory and Practice, sets out to offer a "counterpoint, a counternarrative, and a corrective to the public depiction of Vivian Maier." She makes the convincing case that "Her earliest known photographs reveal a confident and informed photographer — not a 'street photographer' or a 'suburban nanny photographer,'" thereby illustrating that Maier and her photography "were all of that and much more."
Indeed, because of the way Maier's work came into the public view after the contents of her derelict storage units were sold at auction to people who didn't know Maier or even what they were buying, she has for years been more of an object than a subject in what's supposed to be her own story. Throughout the book, Bannos gives a thorough account of how "mansplaining Vivian Maier contributed to her mythologizing." In turn, she provides a much-needed alternative to these largely reductive and romanticized myths.
As her subtitle suggests, Bannos deftly weaves Maier's chronological biography — from her tumultuous childhood in New York City and France through jobs in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Chicago as well as many trips across the United States and abroad — with the afterlife of the work she left behind. This multilayered structure results in a fascinating and balanced look at questions of artistic authority, appropriation, legacy and copyright.
What emerges in these compelling pages is a portrait of a woman who endured a chaotic, difficult and impoverished childhood to become an independent adult, committed to self-invention and self-determination. Bannos doggedly traces Maier's family tree back to France's Champsaur Valley, where her mother, Marie Jaussaud, had been born illegitimately, fathered by a man named Nicolas Baille who did not officially acknowledge her as his daughter until she traveled there with young Vivian in 1932. Bannos notes that "A struggle with naming and validation permeates the Jaussaud women's legal documents as they hid the shame of their illegitimacy." It seems as though this genealogical convolution and secrecy likely had much to do with the adult Maier's caginess and fluidity in regards to her own name and background.
Bannos also reveals that while many of Maier's photographs give the impression of Maier as a solitary rover of the streets who had a hard time interacting with people, this was not actually the case. As her 1951 series involving "three dark-haired Italian sisters" named Serafina, Beatrice and Anna Randazzo indicates, she at least occasionally conducted planned portrait sessions.
Writing of a trip to Cuba on which Maier shot a series featuring "a racially mixed, orderly mass of children and adults" at a local school, Bannos notes that Maier's ability "to organize and achieve cooperation in such a mingling of individuals is a testament to her ease and comfort in a broad range of environments."
Moreover, Maier was not so friendless as Maloof and others have portrayed her. In one of the book's many charming photographic plates, Bannos includes an image of Maier at Staten Island's South Beach in the summer of 1952. There, she stands smiling on the sand next to her friend, an older woman named Emilie Haugmard, both of them in bathing suits, illustrating Bannos' observation that Maier "gravitated toward women her grandmother's age as photo subjects and friends."
Refreshingly, Maier as Bannos presents her is not the cartoon of the kooky nanny savant depicted in such accounts as Maloof's well-intentioned but under-informed Academy Award-nominated documentary "Finding Vivian Maier." Rather, Bannos reveals Maier to be a smart, deliberate, well-read, well-traveled and dedicated practitioner of her chosen art. Maier was not some wacky outsider who accidentally stumbled into some great shots; an indefatigable "visual omnivore," she knew what she was doing and practiced her craft with intelligence and verve.
Bannos quotes Rose Lichter-Mark in The New Yorker on how, unfortunately, "Finding Vivian Maier shows that the stories of difficult women can be unflattering even when they are told in praise. The unconventional choices of women are explained in the language of mental illness, trauma, or sexual repression, as symptoms of pathology rather than as an active response to structural challenges or mere preferences."
A good biographer must strike a balance between passion and impartiality. They must feel strongly enough about their subject to convey that subject's life in a comprehensive and comprehensible way to a general audience, but they must also resist the tendency toward either a hagiography or a hatchet job.
Using an approach that is calm and careful, Bannos offers a look at Maier that is complex and humanizing, but never sanctifying or belittling.
"She cultivated an air of mystery, but she no longer seems like a 'mystery woman' to me," writes Bannos of Maier. By the end of this impressively documented and nuanced page-turner, Maier will no longer be a mystery woman to the reader either. Instead, a much richer and more valuable portrait emerges: that of a gifted and methodical artist and a multifarious human being.
January 5, 2024
The story of Vivian's life as best could be ascertained, was that of a private nanny who walked around Chicago and NYC taking photographs.
She always with her cameras and as a street photographer captured street life. The high society and the down and out.
No one knew of her until just before her death.
She had five storage lockers that along with personal things were packed with negatives and undeveloped film.
When the lockers were actioned off the new owners started looking closely at what they had become owners of..
And all of a sudden the photography world exploded.
It is an interesting read.
She always with her cameras and as a street photographer captured street life. The high society and the down and out.
No one knew of her until just before her death.
She had five storage lockers that along with personal things were packed with negatives and undeveloped film.
When the lockers were actioned off the new owners started looking closely at what they had become owners of..
And all of a sudden the photography world exploded.
It is an interesting read.
September 8, 2019
Impressive work!
September 7, 2025
استعرت الكتاب من المكتبة العامة لأني بحضر فيديو عن فيفيان هينزل ع قناة اليوتيوب "عن الفن" قريب
3nelfn@
ف مجهود جيد بس مقرأتهوش اوي فريت فيه كده لان الفيلم الوثائقي عن فيفيان كافي جدًا بالنسبة لي
الكتاب حجمه كبير ومليان كلام اكتر من الصور وده غريب لأنك بتحكي حياة مصورة !
3nelfn@
ف مجهود جيد بس مقرأتهوش اوي فريت فيه كده لان الفيلم الوثائقي عن فيفيان كافي جدًا بالنسبة لي
الكتاب حجمه كبير ومليان كلام اكتر من الصور وده غريب لأنك بتحكي حياة مصورة !
March 11, 2018
This book tells two stories – that of Vivian Maier and her work; and the story of what happened to that work.
Certainly, Vivian Maier was a very interesting person and one that I can personally empathise with, in as much as I can understand about her from what is known; the difficulty that Pamela Bannos has in writing her biography is that nobody knew her before her work became what it is today. This is no struggling, cult followed artist – Vivian Maier was just a person, and a very private person; and one with an incredible talent. For the people who’s paths she crossed it was clear that she was someone who took photographs, but they had no idea of the level of artistry in the work she was creating. Bannos has done an exceptional job in putting together the life of this elusive person; completely separated from the mythology, she has cut to the very core of who she actually was, where she worked (artistically and professionally), her background and her history. What we will never really know is Maier’s own mind; evidence and documents can be pieced together to create a map, but that’s all it is – it is only through her work that we can really glimpse what mattered to her.
Why this book works so well is in the dual storytelling of the last few months of her life, the selling of her possessions whilst she was still alive (initially in bulk and then frame by frame – picture by picture) and the industry around her work that followed. Maier’s story had really been given to the public through one voice, that of John Maloof and his film Finding Vivian Maier – whilst that picture remains a very strong piece of work it’s still his story, this book tells hers as well. What is sad is the ending where the legal twists and turns, the copywrite and law suits are all laid out; but in many ways this action itself makes us return to the person and understand her desire for anonymity.
The plates in this book represent the biography more than art – if you want to marvel at her talent then there are other books much better suited; watch the film but also the BBC documentary ‘Who Took Nanny’s Pictures?’ for another side of the coin– but if you want to know the true story of an extraordinarily talented person, this is the one for you.
Certainly, Vivian Maier was a very interesting person and one that I can personally empathise with, in as much as I can understand about her from what is known; the difficulty that Pamela Bannos has in writing her biography is that nobody knew her before her work became what it is today. This is no struggling, cult followed artist – Vivian Maier was just a person, and a very private person; and one with an incredible talent. For the people who’s paths she crossed it was clear that she was someone who took photographs, but they had no idea of the level of artistry in the work she was creating. Bannos has done an exceptional job in putting together the life of this elusive person; completely separated from the mythology, she has cut to the very core of who she actually was, where she worked (artistically and professionally), her background and her history. What we will never really know is Maier’s own mind; evidence and documents can be pieced together to create a map, but that’s all it is – it is only through her work that we can really glimpse what mattered to her.
Why this book works so well is in the dual storytelling of the last few months of her life, the selling of her possessions whilst she was still alive (initially in bulk and then frame by frame – picture by picture) and the industry around her work that followed. Maier’s story had really been given to the public through one voice, that of John Maloof and his film Finding Vivian Maier – whilst that picture remains a very strong piece of work it’s still his story, this book tells hers as well. What is sad is the ending where the legal twists and turns, the copywrite and law suits are all laid out; but in many ways this action itself makes us return to the person and understand her desire for anonymity.
The plates in this book represent the biography more than art – if you want to marvel at her talent then there are other books much better suited; watch the film but also the BBC documentary ‘Who Took Nanny’s Pictures?’ for another side of the coin– but if you want to know the true story of an extraordinarily talented person, this is the one for you.
July 2, 2024
The amazing photographer Vivian Maier is an enigma, but author Pamela Bannos wrote a very well-researched biography about this elusive woman who gained fame after her death when her photographs went viral. Bannos seemed to have two goals- to share Maier's life from the perspective of a woman, not men who are making money from her photos, and to reframe her life as not a nanny who took pictures, but as a photographer who nannied to support her life's passion.
Bannos discovered Maier's family connections, her worldwide travels and the families that employed Maier from the 1950s to the 1990s. Maier was a woman of contradictions- gruff yet she worked taking care of young children, secretive yet she took many self-portraits, cosmopolitan yet a hoarder, lonely yet seeking connection to people she saw on the streets for her photos, and particular about her photography yet leaving thousands of pictures undeveloped.
While this book and the documentary Finding Vivian Maier seem to give us more questions than answers about her work and her intentions, I'm glad her pictures did end up seeing the light of day, for thousands of people find them fascinating and give us a glimpse of yesteryear.
Bannos discovered Maier's family connections, her worldwide travels and the families that employed Maier from the 1950s to the 1990s. Maier was a woman of contradictions- gruff yet she worked taking care of young children, secretive yet she took many self-portraits, cosmopolitan yet a hoarder, lonely yet seeking connection to people she saw on the streets for her photos, and particular about her photography yet leaving thousands of pictures undeveloped.
While this book and the documentary Finding Vivian Maier seem to give us more questions than answers about her work and her intentions, I'm glad her pictures did end up seeing the light of day, for thousands of people find them fascinating and give us a glimpse of yesteryear.
April 30, 2023
4.5 ⭐️
Read
May 8, 2019There has been widespread interest in Vivian Maier and her photographs since the contents of her storage lockers were auctioned off a few years ago and found to contain a trove of high quality amateur street photography. Quite a few books have been published on her. I picked up this one because I wanted to get a more scholarly look at this rather mysterious woman and her work.
As has been mentioned by other commenters, this is a necessary volume. I didn't always find it a fascinating read (it can be somewhat repetitive in the ideas, and sometimes in the general phrasing), but it's very well researched and provides an actual biography of Maier in combination with a critical examination of how she has been mythologized and sold by the men who discovered her work. That is hugely valuable, and subsequent scholars will rely heavily on the author's painstaking and groundbreaking work.
As has been mentioned by other commenters, this is a necessary volume. I didn't always find it a fascinating read (it can be somewhat repetitive in the ideas, and sometimes in the general phrasing), but it's very well researched and provides an actual biography of Maier in combination with a critical examination of how she has been mythologized and sold by the men who discovered her work. That is hugely valuable, and subsequent scholars will rely heavily on the author's painstaking and groundbreaking work.
March 20, 2018
This provides an alternate description on the secretive photographer. Oh yeah she was a naay too. It describes her life using way too many pictures that we cannot see. However it reasonably connects the dots to what she has seen and the photography at the time.
September 18, 2018
The fuzzy image of Vivian Maier now comes into clear focus.
Vivian Maier invented herself. Then, during her dying days, people who discovered her work reinvented Vivian Maier. She hid her life for reasons of her own. This excellent book sorts out the story.
The book stands as a counterpoint to correct the false image of Vivian Maier over the past seven years. She died nine years ago, leaving her legacy in four tons of stored boxes. Auctions to sell her belongings scattered her prints, negatives and personal possessions.
Pamela Bannos weaves her research of the real Vivian Maier with the distortions and inaccurate misinformation that emerged at the end of her life. Bannos also tracks the parallel evolution of cameras and street photography, which adds a third fascinating dimension to the book. And a fourth thread deals with copyright of who owns what and why.
VIVIAN MAIER’s earliest known photographs date to France in nineteen fifty, the year that half of American households used cameras.
In the previous decade, the forties, photography surged. Life and Look magazines emerged. Exhibitions became more serious. And street photography arrived thanks to handy cameras such as the Brownie box, large-format press cameras, and a medium-format Rolleiflex, a precision instrument that caught sharp images on two-and-a-quarter inch square film, becoming the camera of choice.
Over the years, Maier’s relentless photographing, a hundred thousand images, put her above amateurs but apart from only the busiest professionals, writes Banos. In the early years, Maier’s photos revealed her journeys while demonstrating evolving strategies.
Maier’s photography changed dramatically in July of fifty-two when she began using a Rolleiflex, known as a camera for magazines and journalists. That summer marked her birth as a serious street photographer. As she turned twenty-eight, her compositions became more deliberate and her approaches favored nuanced interactions rather than the split-second decisive moments of other street photographers. She favored intimate personal images incorporating shadows and self-portraits. Vivian Maier found her photographic voice, writes Bannos.
Peering down into the viewfinder of a Rolleiflex creates a distance between the photographer and her subject by breaking the direct eye contact. Through her camera, Vivian Maier became an outsider looking in.
Meanwhile, “Rear Window,” the film, opened in fifty-four, with its suspense generated by cropped scenes through neighbors’ windows, revealing ambiguous scenes open to interpretation, just as with many of Maier’s images.
Vivian Maier moved to Chicago in fifty-six, around her thirtieth birthday, locating in Highland Park on the North Shore, connected to the city by commuter rail. She worked as a nanny, including a year with Phil Donahue and his kids.
Twenty-five miles south, Chicago resembled a scaled-down Manhattan, her hometown: Michigan Avenue paralleled Fifth Avenue, State Street’s flickering theater lights stood in for Times Square, while Lake Michigan and Lincoln Park filled the role of Central Park. Maier arrived during the building boom of the mid-fifties. She developed a habit of snapping pix from the window seat on her commuter train, which revealed the evolving skyline over time.
As Maier neared the end of her life she did not pay the bill for her storage locker. Strangers, including John Maloof, bought the unknown contents in hundreds of boxes, stored in the locker for twenty years.
By not developing or printing her negatives, Maier left her work unfinished, making her case unique because she did not share her photography. Although Maloof gets credit for finding and discovering her work, he does not own the copyright.
Vivian Maier lived as a secretive recluse. She detached herself from her family of origin. Maier cultivated a French persona, but her schooling in France ended at age twelve. It is difficult to know why, for sure, but Maier harbored a shame associated with illegitimacy and mental illness that permeates her family history. Wrangling over her lineage disregarded Maier’s efforts to separate herself from her family.
John Maloof organized Maier’s first exhibition in the states seven years ago at the Chicago Cultural Center, across from Millennium Park. And it was that show that lured me into the Vivian Maier story. It’s a quick train ride from here for a day trip. (That was a traditional gallery show. I preferred an exhibit five years ago at the Chicago History Museum, Lincoln Park, which added a soundscape of the city in the sixties as a fun aural background to the couple dozen large format prints hanging for a walk-through maze while conventional prints lined the walls. That exhibition hung for two years.)
Maloof became the arbiter and voice of Maier. He projected more authority than warranted, standing by distortions and inaccuracies about Maier, writes Banos. Maloof produced a film about Maier from his perspective. He distorted the facts of Maier’s life, photography and serendipitous discovery. Banos wanted Maloof’s cooperation with this book, but he set conditions that she could not accept.
A seventy-nine page appendix documents this book, with detailed endnotes accounting for most of the section. Banos spent four years researching and writing, including two years sorting the images. Three dozen images, mostly black-and-white, illustrate the book along with maps, a family tree and a flow chart revealing the dispersal of items from Vivian Maier’s storage locker. The plates show some of Maier’s themes: men sleeping in public as well as shadows, silhouettes and reflections, including many self-portraits of herself in mirrors.
I like this book. I grew up in Chicago during Vivian Maier’s formative years.
"The art world needs more Vivian Maiers.” The (Often Complicated) Lives of Artists https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/bo...
Vivian Maier, Through a Clearer Lens, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/bo...
Vivian Maier invented herself. Then, during her dying days, people who discovered her work reinvented Vivian Maier. She hid her life for reasons of her own. This excellent book sorts out the story.
The book stands as a counterpoint to correct the false image of Vivian Maier over the past seven years. She died nine years ago, leaving her legacy in four tons of stored boxes. Auctions to sell her belongings scattered her prints, negatives and personal possessions.
Pamela Bannos weaves her research of the real Vivian Maier with the distortions and inaccurate misinformation that emerged at the end of her life. Bannos also tracks the parallel evolution of cameras and street photography, which adds a third fascinating dimension to the book. And a fourth thread deals with copyright of who owns what and why.
VIVIAN MAIER’s earliest known photographs date to France in nineteen fifty, the year that half of American households used cameras.
In the previous decade, the forties, photography surged. Life and Look magazines emerged. Exhibitions became more serious. And street photography arrived thanks to handy cameras such as the Brownie box, large-format press cameras, and a medium-format Rolleiflex, a precision instrument that caught sharp images on two-and-a-quarter inch square film, becoming the camera of choice.
Over the years, Maier’s relentless photographing, a hundred thousand images, put her above amateurs but apart from only the busiest professionals, writes Banos. In the early years, Maier’s photos revealed her journeys while demonstrating evolving strategies.
Maier’s photography changed dramatically in July of fifty-two when she began using a Rolleiflex, known as a camera for magazines and journalists. That summer marked her birth as a serious street photographer. As she turned twenty-eight, her compositions became more deliberate and her approaches favored nuanced interactions rather than the split-second decisive moments of other street photographers. She favored intimate personal images incorporating shadows and self-portraits. Vivian Maier found her photographic voice, writes Bannos.
Peering down into the viewfinder of a Rolleiflex creates a distance between the photographer and her subject by breaking the direct eye contact. Through her camera, Vivian Maier became an outsider looking in.
Meanwhile, “Rear Window,” the film, opened in fifty-four, with its suspense generated by cropped scenes through neighbors’ windows, revealing ambiguous scenes open to interpretation, just as with many of Maier’s images.
Vivian Maier moved to Chicago in fifty-six, around her thirtieth birthday, locating in Highland Park on the North Shore, connected to the city by commuter rail. She worked as a nanny, including a year with Phil Donahue and his kids.
Twenty-five miles south, Chicago resembled a scaled-down Manhattan, her hometown: Michigan Avenue paralleled Fifth Avenue, State Street’s flickering theater lights stood in for Times Square, while Lake Michigan and Lincoln Park filled the role of Central Park. Maier arrived during the building boom of the mid-fifties. She developed a habit of snapping pix from the window seat on her commuter train, which revealed the evolving skyline over time.
As Maier neared the end of her life she did not pay the bill for her storage locker. Strangers, including John Maloof, bought the unknown contents in hundreds of boxes, stored in the locker for twenty years.
By not developing or printing her negatives, Maier left her work unfinished, making her case unique because she did not share her photography. Although Maloof gets credit for finding and discovering her work, he does not own the copyright.
Vivian Maier lived as a secretive recluse. She detached herself from her family of origin. Maier cultivated a French persona, but her schooling in France ended at age twelve. It is difficult to know why, for sure, but Maier harbored a shame associated with illegitimacy and mental illness that permeates her family history. Wrangling over her lineage disregarded Maier’s efforts to separate herself from her family.
John Maloof organized Maier’s first exhibition in the states seven years ago at the Chicago Cultural Center, across from Millennium Park. And it was that show that lured me into the Vivian Maier story. It’s a quick train ride from here for a day trip. (That was a traditional gallery show. I preferred an exhibit five years ago at the Chicago History Museum, Lincoln Park, which added a soundscape of the city in the sixties as a fun aural background to the couple dozen large format prints hanging for a walk-through maze while conventional prints lined the walls. That exhibition hung for two years.)
Maloof became the arbiter and voice of Maier. He projected more authority than warranted, standing by distortions and inaccuracies about Maier, writes Banos. Maloof produced a film about Maier from his perspective. He distorted the facts of Maier’s life, photography and serendipitous discovery. Banos wanted Maloof’s cooperation with this book, but he set conditions that she could not accept.
A seventy-nine page appendix documents this book, with detailed endnotes accounting for most of the section. Banos spent four years researching and writing, including two years sorting the images. Three dozen images, mostly black-and-white, illustrate the book along with maps, a family tree and a flow chart revealing the dispersal of items from Vivian Maier’s storage locker. The plates show some of Maier’s themes: men sleeping in public as well as shadows, silhouettes and reflections, including many self-portraits of herself in mirrors.
I like this book. I grew up in Chicago during Vivian Maier’s formative years.
"The art world needs more Vivian Maiers.” The (Often Complicated) Lives of Artists https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/bo...
Vivian Maier, Through a Clearer Lens, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/bo...
December 5, 2017
As someone who lives in Chicago, I have been fascinated by the Vivian Maier story since the beginning. I was part of the Kickstarter campaign and have followed the story with deep interest. After seeing Maloof's film, which I found a bit underwhelming, I felt like there was something missing. Now I understand why.
Bannos does an exceptional job of not only making Vivian Maier a full human being as opposed to a caricature of the odd single asexual nanny who likes to take pictures, but puts her in the historical context of modern photography from the 1940s through the 1990s. It is a forensic biography - using the meticulous notes she left on negative sleeves as well as other saved ephemera to show how well travelled she was, the long term themes in her work and most importantly that photography was not a hobby for Vivian Maier but her passion and her art.
By finding people who knew Maier as a photographer or film aficionado - the men who worked at Central Camera or at the Art Institute Film Center, work not done by Maloof for his film, the reader gets a view of her as a knowledgeable and deeply dedicated artist.
Thank you Pam Bannos for giving us a multi dimensional view of a fascinating woman and artist.
Bannos does an exceptional job of not only making Vivian Maier a full human being as opposed to a caricature of the odd single asexual nanny who likes to take pictures, but puts her in the historical context of modern photography from the 1940s through the 1990s. It is a forensic biography - using the meticulous notes she left on negative sleeves as well as other saved ephemera to show how well travelled she was, the long term themes in her work and most importantly that photography was not a hobby for Vivian Maier but her passion and her art.
By finding people who knew Maier as a photographer or film aficionado - the men who worked at Central Camera or at the Art Institute Film Center, work not done by Maloof for his film, the reader gets a view of her as a knowledgeable and deeply dedicated artist.
Thank you Pam Bannos for giving us a multi dimensional view of a fascinating woman and artist.
August 24, 2018
While the jump-cuts between the Maier biography, and the story of how her images came to the public and were fanned into a profitable mini-industry become tiresome after a while, this book is, above all else, necessary. It's really the first attempt to piece together the true story of a phenomenon and lay the groundwork for any future critical analysis that isn't warped by the perspective of her initial "discoverers." Bannos has done an invaluable service by placing Maier's work in the context of her time, painstakingly pulling together the chronology of her output, now scattered among many owners. That she was forced to describe so many images without being able to publish them because of the restrictions placed upon their use by the owners of the negatives and prints testifies to how early we are in the process of establishing Maier's true place in the history of photography. At the same time, Bannos clearly demonstrates the impact of the Internet and social media on conceptions of copyright and intellectual property and, more broadly, artistic intent.
December 19, 2018
3.5 stars. This is a thoroughly researched biography but the writing is a bit dry.
December 23, 2021
Interesting but could have focused more on her life and development as a photographer after the early 1960s. I didn't think the structure of her life v. estate worked either.
June 30, 2021
The story of Vivian Maier is arguably one of the most fascinating stories not only on photography but also on the nature of artistic work as an artifact that transcends both time and space, while in some ways, is also paralyzed by it. The book thoroughly covers the biographical details of Maier's life while also closely following the trails of how her work circulated across the world to become the global sensation she now is. I believe Bannos does an excellent job of unseating Maier from the stage of a mythical icon to present to us a more human rendering of the woman she was that is free from the grips of mere public speculation. This is a highly recommended read for those curious about Vivian Maier and those interested in understanding the history of photography.
May 8, 2019
This is a book of two stories - all information collected on Vivian Maier to date, and what happened to her photography collection originally auctioned off in sections, then subsequently sold in pieces on ebay. Interesting tale that continues to have a life, even to this day.
May 20, 2022
La primera vez que lo vi, online, pensé que era un libro de fotografías por lo caro que era. Me equivoqué. Gran parte es una obviedad así que yo recomiendo buscar las fotografías y dejar que Vivian hable por sí sola, en el anonimato, sí.
September 9, 2021
Pamela Bannos has written a fascinating account of the illusive photographer Vivian Maier, whose photos were discovered after being auctioned off by the storage locker company when she stopped paying the rental fees. Bannos investigates who Vivian Maier was--how she became a photographer and why she never shared her work. Bannos follows Maier through her photos as she worked in New York City, France, Chicago and around the world. The story of the investigation is as fascinating as the story of Vivian Maier's life.
May 20, 2021
In the world of photography, only a handful of photographers break through and have their work etched in the public's memory. Bring up Ansel Adams, and you immediately think of his black and white landscape photographs of the American West. Dorothea Lange's famous portrait of a migrant mother and her children during the Great Depression was one of the earliest and most powerful examples of photojournalism. And for a while, in the late aughts, Vivian Maier became a viral sensation when prints of her decades-old street photography in her native Chicago were discovered in a storage unit auction and were shared and showcased in photography blogs.
Photography is one of my most passionate hobbies. Part of my growth is observing the work of others in the photographic canon and seeing what makes their images so memorable. I had first heard of Vivian Maier only recently when a Google search recommended her when I was looking for famous American photographers specializing in cityscapes and street scenes. My undergraduate background had introduced me to famous photographers like Adams and Lange. My frequent art museum visits brought the likes of Walker Evans and Diane Arbus to my attention. But I had never heard of Maier in my classes or seen her work in museums, but her photographs were inarguably that of a master.
Her compositions contain a vivid, lucid quality and evoke a poignancy for days past. The heart of her work was her portraits of everyday people, and she snapshots these moments in time with the care and attention of a mother to her newborn. One of her favorite subjects was children, and she manages to capture their innocence, sense of wonder, and unbridled joy, sifting life's most precious moments out of the everyday. The setting for most of these photos was sixties Chicago, and they are infused with a nostalgic character. Vintage cars line the streets, which house the storefronts of yesteryear. Every detail is a history lesson, and online viewers seeking photographs from a bygone era were treated to a cache of technicolor treasures. Unfortunately, despite her newfound fame, Vivian Maier was out of the picture as she had passed away some time afterward, and the public was left to piece together the identity of this talented and mysterious photographer. Just what was it about her upbringing that gave her the keen eye to freeze such perfect moments like magic?
Vivian Maier's genius is explored in Pamela Bannos' book Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife. At the very beginning, it's clear that Bannos isn't interested in simply retelling the myth surrounding Maier, which is a fascinating story on its own. Maier's collection of photo prints and undeveloped negatives was discovered by the new owners of a storage facility after Maier had missed payment on her five units. Those units' contents (amounting to about three truckloads of photographs, books, magazines, negatives, and rolls of undeveloped film) were put up for auction and snatched up by a single buyer to sell the collection in pieces. The buyer owned an auction house specializing in antiques and resold the collection to various buyers, including a real estate agent, John Maloof. Impressed by the images' quality, he did his research and "discovered" the identity of a reclusive photographer who had sustained her way of life by working as a nanny for decades.
Instead of repeating the narrative that dominated blogs and articles about Maier's work, Bannos takes a more nuanced approach, asking the reader to think about who is left out of the conversation about her work, the artist. "Ethical issues have largely been glossed over in favor of a heroic narrative that benefits the people who have been selling her work. We are told that they have saved Vivian Maier from oblivion and have allowed us to own pieces of her legacy." From the get-go, Bannos presents her view that while Vivian is not around to defend her identity or work, those who own her collection have their motivations besides sharing her work with the world. "High and low culture intermingle, with profound economic results; Maier's work and her life are defined over and over again by presumptions about her as a woman; and both in life and work, no one can agree on her story, her character, and her value."
Bannos does her best to tell the whole story of Vivian Maier and the world that raised her. The book is split into two narratives that alternate in sections. One goes into the specifics of the sale of her work and its aftermath, while the other starts with her family history in France and chronicles Vivian's life. The modern-day narrative provides essential context about who owns her work and how she grew to be famous after she died, but the more compelling story is the one where Bannos uses her research and Maier's own photography to build a timeline of Maier's life. It is an intermingling of art history and biography, and readers will appreciate Bannos' lessons in photography history for the uninitiated.
There are mentions of Eugène Atget, the father of documentary photography who influenced a generation of photographers in the United States. Among them was Walker Evans, whose portraits and scenes of Depression-era America would be exhibited at MOMA in New York City, where Vivian was born and spent her teenage years. Bannos takes note of this history to cement Maier's place in this tradition of documentary photography and how they would serve to influence her. Not only were the creative class forging their paths, but Bannos describes how photography was becoming more accessible and marketed towards consumers. She brings up advertisements of The Kodak Girl, globe-trotting young women who could now capture all of life's exciting moments with their new cameras. Maier would join this new generation of independent and empowered women who documented the world around them.
And then there is the work of Vivian herself. While not a photo book, there are a handful of Maier's photographs showcased, and many of her images are described in vivid detail by Bannos. Just as important as the subjects of Maier's photos are the circumstances that led her to them. She had inherited farmland in France's old country with the intent to sell, an opportunity that helped fund a year abroad in Europe to hone her photography skills. Like other women in her family, she had supported herself in America by becoming a servant to affluent families, typically as a caregiver for children. This access to wealth funded family trips to sugar plantations in Cuba or an Aboriginal Village in Vancouver, all on the family's dime. Being a babysitter in New York offered a convenient excuse to take the children to the city and capture them and the environment around her. Not just limited to those close to her, Maier had the courage to approach strangers and a gift for allaying people's suspicions, building enough of an intimate relationship between them to take their picture.
This is the human side of Maier that Bannos shines a light on. A portrait of a dedicated photographer and an empathetic, loving person who was a product of her time and place. These qualities could be found in the treasures she left behind in the storage lockers in Chicago. She reminds us that the person behind the lens is as important as the subjects in front.
Photography is one of my most passionate hobbies. Part of my growth is observing the work of others in the photographic canon and seeing what makes their images so memorable. I had first heard of Vivian Maier only recently when a Google search recommended her when I was looking for famous American photographers specializing in cityscapes and street scenes. My undergraduate background had introduced me to famous photographers like Adams and Lange. My frequent art museum visits brought the likes of Walker Evans and Diane Arbus to my attention. But I had never heard of Maier in my classes or seen her work in museums, but her photographs were inarguably that of a master.
Her compositions contain a vivid, lucid quality and evoke a poignancy for days past. The heart of her work was her portraits of everyday people, and she snapshots these moments in time with the care and attention of a mother to her newborn. One of her favorite subjects was children, and she manages to capture their innocence, sense of wonder, and unbridled joy, sifting life's most precious moments out of the everyday. The setting for most of these photos was sixties Chicago, and they are infused with a nostalgic character. Vintage cars line the streets, which house the storefronts of yesteryear. Every detail is a history lesson, and online viewers seeking photographs from a bygone era were treated to a cache of technicolor treasures. Unfortunately, despite her newfound fame, Vivian Maier was out of the picture as she had passed away some time afterward, and the public was left to piece together the identity of this talented and mysterious photographer. Just what was it about her upbringing that gave her the keen eye to freeze such perfect moments like magic?
Vivian Maier's genius is explored in Pamela Bannos' book Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife. At the very beginning, it's clear that Bannos isn't interested in simply retelling the myth surrounding Maier, which is a fascinating story on its own. Maier's collection of photo prints and undeveloped negatives was discovered by the new owners of a storage facility after Maier had missed payment on her five units. Those units' contents (amounting to about three truckloads of photographs, books, magazines, negatives, and rolls of undeveloped film) were put up for auction and snatched up by a single buyer to sell the collection in pieces. The buyer owned an auction house specializing in antiques and resold the collection to various buyers, including a real estate agent, John Maloof. Impressed by the images' quality, he did his research and "discovered" the identity of a reclusive photographer who had sustained her way of life by working as a nanny for decades.
Instead of repeating the narrative that dominated blogs and articles about Maier's work, Bannos takes a more nuanced approach, asking the reader to think about who is left out of the conversation about her work, the artist. "Ethical issues have largely been glossed over in favor of a heroic narrative that benefits the people who have been selling her work. We are told that they have saved Vivian Maier from oblivion and have allowed us to own pieces of her legacy." From the get-go, Bannos presents her view that while Vivian is not around to defend her identity or work, those who own her collection have their motivations besides sharing her work with the world. "High and low culture intermingle, with profound economic results; Maier's work and her life are defined over and over again by presumptions about her as a woman; and both in life and work, no one can agree on her story, her character, and her value."
Bannos does her best to tell the whole story of Vivian Maier and the world that raised her. The book is split into two narratives that alternate in sections. One goes into the specifics of the sale of her work and its aftermath, while the other starts with her family history in France and chronicles Vivian's life. The modern-day narrative provides essential context about who owns her work and how she grew to be famous after she died, but the more compelling story is the one where Bannos uses her research and Maier's own photography to build a timeline of Maier's life. It is an intermingling of art history and biography, and readers will appreciate Bannos' lessons in photography history for the uninitiated.
There are mentions of Eugène Atget, the father of documentary photography who influenced a generation of photographers in the United States. Among them was Walker Evans, whose portraits and scenes of Depression-era America would be exhibited at MOMA in New York City, where Vivian was born and spent her teenage years. Bannos takes note of this history to cement Maier's place in this tradition of documentary photography and how they would serve to influence her. Not only were the creative class forging their paths, but Bannos describes how photography was becoming more accessible and marketed towards consumers. She brings up advertisements of The Kodak Girl, globe-trotting young women who could now capture all of life's exciting moments with their new cameras. Maier would join this new generation of independent and empowered women who documented the world around them.
And then there is the work of Vivian herself. While not a photo book, there are a handful of Maier's photographs showcased, and many of her images are described in vivid detail by Bannos. Just as important as the subjects of Maier's photos are the circumstances that led her to them. She had inherited farmland in France's old country with the intent to sell, an opportunity that helped fund a year abroad in Europe to hone her photography skills. Like other women in her family, she had supported herself in America by becoming a servant to affluent families, typically as a caregiver for children. This access to wealth funded family trips to sugar plantations in Cuba or an Aboriginal Village in Vancouver, all on the family's dime. Being a babysitter in New York offered a convenient excuse to take the children to the city and capture them and the environment around her. Not just limited to those close to her, Maier had the courage to approach strangers and a gift for allaying people's suspicions, building enough of an intimate relationship between them to take their picture.
This is the human side of Maier that Bannos shines a light on. A portrait of a dedicated photographer and an empathetic, loving person who was a product of her time and place. These qualities could be found in the treasures she left behind in the storage lockers in Chicago. She reminds us that the person behind the lens is as important as the subjects in front.
Read
December 27, 2017While the first chapter is a bit slow -- it's a look at the family lineage of Vivian Maier which, without a lot of context, is kind of meaningless initially -- everything makes sense as the book continues. Bannos takes what has become a myth about the ultra-talented nanny photographer and explores the true history of Vivian Maier and how her life and photography mirrored the development of the art. This book unravels a lot about Maier which has so conveniently been left off the real story of a woman who was far more interesting in reality than in mythology. More, this story explores how men have profited off the lies they've told and perpetuated. Bannos does tremendous work here, going so far as to find where Maloof had asked in online legal forums what could happen related to copyright and what he hoped to do with the photos he'd bought at the locker auction.
More, this really gives a sense of Maier's depth of love for photography. It wasn't that she was a secret talent. She LOVED doing it and while she was eccentric, it's clear she worked caring for children because it helped her afford a life of travel and photography. There's a really unbelievable piece of this story where Bannos talks about a mega trip that Maier planned to travel through South America....that didn't happen (she traveled across Asia, Africa, and Europe later on) and yet, Maloof had taken, and talked up, to have been a thing that DID happen.
At heart, it's a book about reclaiming Vivian's voice for herself. In the bigger picture, it's a book about how men took away her voice, claimed it for themselves, filled in gaps the way they felt like it, and profited. Finding Vivian Maier has an entirely different taste to it now -- it's much more flat and phony. Maier was far more interesting than the stories that have been told about her.
The photography in here is great, too. I've seen the exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, and now I'm itching to go back and not only see how the story was framed, but also look to see whether what Bannos says about her intimacy with her subjects feels more true (I think it does).
It's an academic text but readers who love photography or the ~mystery~ of Maier will gulp it down. There are nearly 100 pages of endnotes.
More, this really gives a sense of Maier's depth of love for photography. It wasn't that she was a secret talent. She LOVED doing it and while she was eccentric, it's clear she worked caring for children because it helped her afford a life of travel and photography. There's a really unbelievable piece of this story where Bannos talks about a mega trip that Maier planned to travel through South America....that didn't happen (she traveled across Asia, Africa, and Europe later on) and yet, Maloof had taken, and talked up, to have been a thing that DID happen.
At heart, it's a book about reclaiming Vivian's voice for herself. In the bigger picture, it's a book about how men took away her voice, claimed it for themselves, filled in gaps the way they felt like it, and profited. Finding Vivian Maier has an entirely different taste to it now -- it's much more flat and phony. Maier was far more interesting than the stories that have been told about her.
The photography in here is great, too. I've seen the exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, and now I'm itching to go back and not only see how the story was framed, but also look to see whether what Bannos says about her intimacy with her subjects feels more true (I think it does).
It's an academic text but readers who love photography or the ~mystery~ of Maier will gulp it down. There are nearly 100 pages of endnotes.
March 27, 2018
Kudos to the author for digging deep and bringing Vivian Maier to life. I don’t think VM would have wanted us all to have a ring side view into her life, but after John Maloof’s one sided portrayal - it’s only fair that someone offered a more nuanced depiction that showed her to be a complex individual who was fiercely independent and challenged the societal norms of her time. We got a sense of Vivian Maier as a photographer who made a living as a nanny, and not a nanny who photographed. The author did a fantastic job of framing VM’s life against the broader historical and cultural trends in photography which really helped to contextualize her photos. I also learned a lot about intellectual property rights - and was pleased to read of the twist at the end, related to VM’s estate. It’s odd to admit, but I’ll miss Vivian, after spending time reading about her, walking in her shoes and imagining her life through her pictures.
December 1, 2020
So many details that it's getting boring
Whole this book could be written in 100 pages. Author describes so many pictures of Vivian without even showing them in the book. I don't understand how you can do that. Author also repeats the same stories in many places. Watching documentary movie for one hour will give you the same information.
Whole this book could be written in 100 pages. Author describes so many pictures of Vivian without even showing them in the book. I don't understand how you can do that. Author also repeats the same stories in many places. Watching documentary movie for one hour will give you the same information.
December 24, 2025
This book exemplifies meticulous, level-headed research on a figure who has become both trending and deeply mystified. The author conducts exhaustive archival work on countless Vivian Maier photographs, personal effects, documents, and receipts. The result is an unusually complete record of where Maier lived and worked, the events she attended, the cameras she used, and the places in which she made her photographs.
Without reading this book, it would be easy to accept the simplified narrative presented by Finding Vivian Maier. This study complicates that story and advances several important points. First, the author insists that Maier should be understood as a photographer above all else—not merely a “street photographer” or a “nanny with a camera,” but a serious practitioner of the medium. Second, Maier began using professional equipment at a relatively early age; by twenty-six she had acquired a Rolleiflex, the camera favored by many professionals at the time. Third, she was actively engaged with the cultural life of her era, regularly attending movie theaters and public lectures.
The author also works to situate Maier within a broader historical framework, placing her photographic practice in dialogue with the social, cultural, and documentary traditions of her time. In this sense, the book functions not only as a biography but also as a cultural document.
Equally compelling is the book’s examination of the contemporary “Vivian Maier phenomenon”: the public’s fascination with her mystery, the transformation of her work into a commercial enterprise, and the ethical implications of one individual assuming ownership and control over another person’s artistic legacy. This aspect of the book reads as a subtle but pointed cultural study.
There is an underlying sadness to Maier’s story. She left behind boxes of belongings and creative work without the means—or perhaps the desire—to determine their final outcome. One cannot help but wonder whether having children or closer personal relationships might have allowed her to make different arrangements for her archive. Yet these were her personal choices, and the book resists sentimentalizing them.
At times, the book can feel dry, and it would benefit greatly from a chronological timeline to help guide the reader through the dense accumulation of facts. This limitation is what ultimately prevented me from giving it five stars. Nevertheless, I hold great respect for the author’s rigor and commitment to historical accuracy.
(Edited with AI assistance)
Quote:
Without reading this book, it would be easy to accept the simplified narrative presented by Finding Vivian Maier. This study complicates that story and advances several important points. First, the author insists that Maier should be understood as a photographer above all else—not merely a “street photographer” or a “nanny with a camera,” but a serious practitioner of the medium. Second, Maier began using professional equipment at a relatively early age; by twenty-six she had acquired a Rolleiflex, the camera favored by many professionals at the time. Third, she was actively engaged with the cultural life of her era, regularly attending movie theaters and public lectures.
The author also works to situate Maier within a broader historical framework, placing her photographic practice in dialogue with the social, cultural, and documentary traditions of her time. In this sense, the book functions not only as a biography but also as a cultural document.
Equally compelling is the book’s examination of the contemporary “Vivian Maier phenomenon”: the public’s fascination with her mystery, the transformation of her work into a commercial enterprise, and the ethical implications of one individual assuming ownership and control over another person’s artistic legacy. This aspect of the book reads as a subtle but pointed cultural study.
There is an underlying sadness to Maier’s story. She left behind boxes of belongings and creative work without the means—or perhaps the desire—to determine their final outcome. One cannot help but wonder whether having children or closer personal relationships might have allowed her to make different arrangements for her archive. Yet these were her personal choices, and the book resists sentimentalizing them.
At times, the book can feel dry, and it would benefit greatly from a chronological timeline to help guide the reader through the dense accumulation of facts. This limitation is what ultimately prevented me from giving it five stars. Nevertheless, I hold great respect for the author’s rigor and commitment to historical accuracy.
(Edited with AI assistance)
Quote:
Finding Vivian Maier was produced for a broad audience and was not meant to portray a complex subject with all her subtleties. It functioned well as a travelogue told from the perspective of a young man with a captivating story of an intriguing woman. And in January 2015, it was nominated for an Academy Award, carrying Vivian Maier full circle from a devotee of motion pictures to the subject of a critically acclaimed movie. But the movie did Vivian Maier a disservice by not portraying her as a photographer above all else. The movie’s presentation of its subject as an enigma was easily accomplished through interviews with people with whom Maier chose not to share of herself, and their lack of familiarity with her and her photographic work heightened the confusion. Unlike the BBC documentary, Maloof and Siskel’s movie did not introduce anybody who knew Maier through her photography or through her passion for cinema.
Vivian Maier moved on to be a nanny for a family in Glenview, another northern suburb. Upon her hiring, Maier confided to her employers, “I have to tell you that I come with my life, and my life is in boxes.”Still, they were taken off guard when she arrived with two hundred boxes, which they stored in their garage. Maier stayed with them for one year, and as at her previous stop, she left the boxes untouched.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 1, 2020
I first experienced Vivian Maier while watching a Chicago Tonight story from a few years about the legal battles over her photographs, and at an exhibition at the Chicago History Museum soon thereafter. I was intrigued to learn more, but I was frustrated by all of the contemporary drama (and personal and legal squabbles) surrounding her. So much mystery and controversy swirled around this figure, and I was glad to learn of Bannos's extensive biography. This was a well-researched book that documents and demystifies Vivian Maier. She busts some really damaging (and misogynist) myths about Maier as a photographer and artist. Bannos's feminist lens also allows the biography to give credit to Maier's work, while also cutting through the mansplaining (and, to be more precise, internet mansplaining) that has come to define the cultural conversations surrounding her.
The book was so detailed I sometimes felt "lost in the weeds" when Bannos delved into technical descriptions of Maier's photographic equipment, but that is mostly because I'm a novice when it comes to photography. However, given Bannos's academic background, it makes sense that this information is important to include, and learning about the technical advances over time provides more context for Maier's prolific camerawork. Additionally, Bannos provides stunning analyses of Maier's work, but due to copyright issues was sadly not able to include reproductions in the book itself. The flipside of this, which I very much appreciated, was that Bannos contextualized Maier's stylistic choices with contemporary movements in photography, particularly in the rise of street photography in the mid- to late-twentieth century. Bannos places Maier squarely with her more well-known contemporaries, and indicates Maier's deep research, obsessive daily practice of, and sheer expertise in her craft.
I left this book feeling a deep sadness for Maier and frustration with the collectors and curators who (I feel) exploited her work for financial and personal gains. (Bannos happens to mention the similarities between Maier and Henry Darger, another misunderstood, secretive, and posthumously exploited artist for whom I feel a lot of sympathy and rage.) I probably wouldn't feel this way without learning more about Maier's secretive personality and private ways. I felt even more frustration with the collectors who took liberties in creating Maier in such a way that they themselves were mythologized as heroes in the story by "discovering" her. Perhaps the lesson in all of this is how in the world of eBay and online auctioning, it is hard to truly know all about the objects we obtain, and even less so about the people who created them. It makes me even more proud to work at a non-profit, free to the public research library.
Bannos makes clear that Maier lived a quiet, secluded life, and the thousands upon thousands of photographs she created were not meant to be shared. I love art and I love learning about artistic figures like Vivian Maier. But if she didn't want her life on display (even, or especially, posthumously), it feels important to leave her be.
The book was so detailed I sometimes felt "lost in the weeds" when Bannos delved into technical descriptions of Maier's photographic equipment, but that is mostly because I'm a novice when it comes to photography. However, given Bannos's academic background, it makes sense that this information is important to include, and learning about the technical advances over time provides more context for Maier's prolific camerawork. Additionally, Bannos provides stunning analyses of Maier's work, but due to copyright issues was sadly not able to include reproductions in the book itself. The flipside of this, which I very much appreciated, was that Bannos contextualized Maier's stylistic choices with contemporary movements in photography, particularly in the rise of street photography in the mid- to late-twentieth century. Bannos places Maier squarely with her more well-known contemporaries, and indicates Maier's deep research, obsessive daily practice of, and sheer expertise in her craft.
I left this book feeling a deep sadness for Maier and frustration with the collectors and curators who (I feel) exploited her work for financial and personal gains. (Bannos happens to mention the similarities between Maier and Henry Darger, another misunderstood, secretive, and posthumously exploited artist for whom I feel a lot of sympathy and rage.) I probably wouldn't feel this way without learning more about Maier's secretive personality and private ways. I felt even more frustration with the collectors who took liberties in creating Maier in such a way that they themselves were mythologized as heroes in the story by "discovering" her. Perhaps the lesson in all of this is how in the world of eBay and online auctioning, it is hard to truly know all about the objects we obtain, and even less so about the people who created them. It makes me even more proud to work at a non-profit, free to the public research library.
Bannos makes clear that Maier lived a quiet, secluded life, and the thousands upon thousands of photographs she created were not meant to be shared. I love art and I love learning about artistic figures like Vivian Maier. But if she didn't want her life on display (even, or especially, posthumously), it feels important to leave her be.
August 22, 2025
Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife Vivian and her story or lack thereof is fascinating to many. Bannos attempts to recreate Maier's life through her photos. We get a very detailed timeline of where Maier went and what she saw and photographed. This still leaves Miss Vivian shrouded in mystery.
Finding that treasure trove of materials at auction is like a dream come true, but like many dreams, it was too good to be true even though the buyers of her film, negatives, photos, movies and other materials so very badly wanted the items to be theirs no strings attached, turns out they were not.
You can assume or imagine a lot. From what I knew before until after reading this, my image of Vivian Maier has changed for the better and the worse. I think I might admire her spirit and yet not particularly like her personally. But who knows. This adds as many new questions as it tries to answer.
What would Vivian have wanted done with her life work? It seems as if she had the joy of taking all the photos and she was not above honing in behind another photographer's set up and stealing the scene. It's really hard to know if she secretly hoped to be discovered.
I'm glad she seemed liked or at least tolerated well by many of the children she took around with her. I think she tried to be good to them if not slightly absent or distracted by her photographing. As for the far off relatives inheriting her copyright, I would vote no. The people that took a chance on buying the items put a lot of time, money and thought into bringing Vivian Meier to the people. They deserve to have the rights.
Of course I'd have loved to have seen the photos described in the book on the pages but only a handful were submitted as plates at the end of this very well referenced book.
On a side note, you can really see and understand where Donald Trump is coming from when you read about the goings on in the late 60's and early 70's. All that he witnessed as well as Maier made him into the patriotic, old school president he has become.
Finding that treasure trove of materials at auction is like a dream come true, but like many dreams, it was too good to be true even though the buyers of her film, negatives, photos, movies and other materials so very badly wanted the items to be theirs no strings attached, turns out they were not.
You can assume or imagine a lot. From what I knew before until after reading this, my image of Vivian Maier has changed for the better and the worse. I think I might admire her spirit and yet not particularly like her personally. But who knows. This adds as many new questions as it tries to answer.
What would Vivian have wanted done with her life work? It seems as if she had the joy of taking all the photos and she was not above honing in behind another photographer's set up and stealing the scene. It's really hard to know if she secretly hoped to be discovered.
I'm glad she seemed liked or at least tolerated well by many of the children she took around with her. I think she tried to be good to them if not slightly absent or distracted by her photographing. As for the far off relatives inheriting her copyright, I would vote no. The people that took a chance on buying the items put a lot of time, money and thought into bringing Vivian Meier to the people. They deserve to have the rights.
Of course I'd have loved to have seen the photos described in the book on the pages but only a handful were submitted as plates at the end of this very well referenced book.
On a side note, you can really see and understand where Donald Trump is coming from when you read about the goings on in the late 60's and early 70's. All that he witnessed as well as Maier made him into the patriotic, old school president he has become.
April 23, 2025
Vivian Maier’s is a story in two parts - her life (her photography, her reasons for not sharing it, and how it related to the ways she supported herself) and her afterlife (the men who got ahold of her photography near the end of her life and shared it with the world). This book competently weaves the two complicated threads together, switching between them often enough to add structure to each narrative and seldom enough to avoid becoming chaotic.
Journalistic in tone, the book steadfastly avoids speculating about Maier’s inner thoughts or moralizing about the actions of her posthumous publicists and profiteers, presenting only the facts as they are available - and, seemingly, everywhere they are available. It is nothing if not thorough, which can make it dry and difficult to follow at times.
The result is an exhaustive biography that equips the reader to conjure their own detailed image of Maier and their own nuanced opinions of the controversies that surround her work.
Much about Maier will never be certain, but while John Maloof’s documentary “Finding Vivian Maier” raises more questions than it answers, perhaps in its own interests, this book shines real light on who Maier was and what drove her photography.
Maier was so much more than the film made her out to be, her legacy so much messier.
If you were captivated by “Finding Vivian Maier” but found it to be lacking in actual information, and if you have the patience to listen, this is the book to fill in the gaps for you.
Journalistic in tone, the book steadfastly avoids speculating about Maier’s inner thoughts or moralizing about the actions of her posthumous publicists and profiteers, presenting only the facts as they are available - and, seemingly, everywhere they are available. It is nothing if not thorough, which can make it dry and difficult to follow at times.
The result is an exhaustive biography that equips the reader to conjure their own detailed image of Maier and their own nuanced opinions of the controversies that surround her work.
Much about Maier will never be certain, but while John Maloof’s documentary “Finding Vivian Maier” raises more questions than it answers, perhaps in its own interests, this book shines real light on who Maier was and what drove her photography.
Maier was so much more than the film made her out to be, her legacy so much messier.
If you were captivated by “Finding Vivian Maier” but found it to be lacking in actual information, and if you have the patience to listen, this is the book to fill in the gaps for you.
October 19, 2024
I appreciate this book but didn't find it particularly enjoyable to read.
Bannos describes the haphazard distribution of Vivian Maier's possessions and the false assumptions that have been made about Maier and her photography by buyers who had access to only part of her body of work. To rectify the limited portrayals, Bannos gives details of Maier's travels, specific descriptions of many of her photographs and she places Maier's work within the history of photography. It's a thorough and conscientious exploration.
But it's not engaging on a human scale. Bannos sets up the narrative in such a way that it requires frequent retelling - on page 261 we're told that Maier "came into the world as part of a family that nearly immediately broke apart." We already know this because we read it hundreds of pages earlier in a chapter called A Family Divided/Photography's Complex History. Bannos describes Maier's travels and gives detailed descriptions of the photos she takes, but we don't get to know Maier the woman. Her secretive and solitary nature made it difficult to understand her inner workings, but Bannos' approach doesn't do much to make Maeir seem less remote. Even the personal descriptions by the families Maier nannied - descriptions that make her seem like a real person - are reserved until the second to last chapter of the book.
Bannos has written a very thorough biography of Maier's work, but there's more to learn about the woman behind the camera.
Bannos describes the haphazard distribution of Vivian Maier's possessions and the false assumptions that have been made about Maier and her photography by buyers who had access to only part of her body of work. To rectify the limited portrayals, Bannos gives details of Maier's travels, specific descriptions of many of her photographs and she places Maier's work within the history of photography. It's a thorough and conscientious exploration.
But it's not engaging on a human scale. Bannos sets up the narrative in such a way that it requires frequent retelling - on page 261 we're told that Maier "came into the world as part of a family that nearly immediately broke apart." We already know this because we read it hundreds of pages earlier in a chapter called A Family Divided/Photography's Complex History. Bannos describes Maier's travels and gives detailed descriptions of the photos she takes, but we don't get to know Maier the woman. Her secretive and solitary nature made it difficult to understand her inner workings, but Bannos' approach doesn't do much to make Maeir seem less remote. Even the personal descriptions by the families Maier nannied - descriptions that make her seem like a real person - are reserved until the second to last chapter of the book.
Bannos has written a very thorough biography of Maier's work, but there's more to learn about the woman behind the camera.
May 1, 2021
Fascinating and tragic story of a woman who was revealed to be a great photographer just before her death when she wasn’t alert to know she’d become famous. This is a more general biography than the more intimate biography in the documentary. It’s more of a summary and blow by blow known account of her life. It won’t move you but it’s interesting and fills in gaps. I was glad I read it. Disappointed that her travels and photographs abroad were ignored except for France. And I felt that claiming her identity as New Yorker is a bit off because the authors don’t seem to take into account her parents as migrants, she identified mainly as French and did spent years as a child there. She also lived there for a year as a woman. Yes a New Yorker but obviously she identified more with her parents and they also were creative from where they came from. Maybe because they needed immigration to understand as many place names might have been unknown to the immigration authorities. But it is a great story.
July 17, 2024
I read this book because I am a photographer and thought I should. It was a tough slog because nobody really knew anything about Vivian Maier. There was a lot of talk about her photos, how she took them, where she took them and where her family was from, but very little on her personality. I finished this book feeling frustrated that nobody knew more about her. She nannied for many families, so I would have thought one of the children she worked for could speak to her personality, but nobody seemed to know much. I handed this book off to a friend who is a copyright lawyer, since there was some intriguing info about photography copyright, but I certainly did not expect that to be the most memorable part of the book. I am not even sure I will watch the documentary about her since nobody knows much, but at least her photos will be shown. There were many descriptions of her photos, but very few of them made it into the book comparatively.
April 5, 2022
com mais de oitenta anos, vivian maier passava os dias sentada num banco de jardim de um subúrbio de chicago, a olhar o lago michigan. alguns residentes conheciam-na de vista, muitos julgavam tratar-se de uma sem-abrigo. a verdade é que nesse momento, sem que ela o soubesse, as suas espantosas fotografias começavam a aparecer em blogs, replicadas sem fim em sites e portais na internet - e tudo porque o seu espólio de dezenas de milhares de fotos, a maioria em rolos ainda por revelar, tinha ido a leilão por ela ter deixado de pagar a renda do armazém onde o guardava. miss maier faleceu pouco depois e, ao contrário do que se quis fazer crer na altura, não se tratava de uma nanny que se divertia a tirar fotografias mas sim de uma enorme fotógrafa que apenas procurou essa ocupação como meio de sustento. sem descendentes directos, o seu legado ainda hoje se vai discutindo em tribunais. nesta biografia fica a história de uma mulher que optou deliberadamente por não divulgar a sua obra, um mistério quase tão grande como o de cada um dos seus retratos, que me remetem sempre para a bela definição de diana arbus: uma fotografia é um segredo sobre um segredo; quanto mais ela nos diz, menos sabemos.
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