photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
jypsee | all galleries >> Galleries >> Inspired By > Vivian Maier
previous | next
1965 Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier

Highland Park, IL

I was searching for art galleries in Florida (a state bereft of the arts, for the most part) and came upon a new-ish photo museum(?) in Tampa that has AN UPCOMING exhibit by VIVIAN MAIER someone I've never heard of, but apparently the whole world has. It seems she made a body of work beginning in the 40s and into the late 80s and rarely showed her work to anyone. When she couldn't pay her storage fees any longer, her boxes of negatives and prints were sold at auction. Someone who was doing research for a local history book in Chicago bought some of her negatives, didn't find what he wanted, and put the boxes aside. When he finally looked at them he was overwhelmed by the work, didn't know what to do with it so he took his question to the group HARD CORE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY on Flickr (which as a "heavily curated group" would have rejected Maier's work). The upshot is that fast forward just 4 years, and there have been numerous exhibitions and two books published of her work. I bought one by JEFF GOLDSTEIN.

After reading it i can say that I know Vivian Maier. Intimately. Her work is personal and her eye is a woman's eye. She makes me want to buy a Rolleiflex and some 120 film.. Vivian Maier died and her obituary was posted just a day or so before the original buyer of her legacy finally got around to trying to locate her.


other sizes: small medium large original auto