The combination of employment as a children’s Nanny whilst producing work that is valued as art is intriguing. The middle section of the film is essentially an investigation of Maier’s personal life. This led to exhibitions of her work in galleries and the film includes brief comments on and comparisons of the quality of Maier’s photographs. When he commenced posting some of her photographs on the Internet he realised that her work was both of professional standard and deemed to be of quality and value. Maloof then recounts how he started working through his archive and researching Maier. It reminded me faintly of the use of interviewees in Warren Beatty’s Reds (1981): that is another film where a conventional treatment dilutes the substance of the portrait. It opens with a series of excerpts from interviews with the families for whom Maier worked as a Nanny. She does not seem to have worked at processing and developing: though one throwaway line notes that she was not good at ‘printing up photographs’. Some of her work was developed and printed and this seems to be true of most of the 8mm and 16mm film. In the course of the film we learn that for much of her work Maier’s favoured camera was a Rolleiflex. Maloof’s trove included thousands of photographic negatives, undeveloped rolls of black and white and colour film, and Super 8 mm and 16mm films. The items were auctioned off to cover unpaid storage costs. Maier was still alive at this point, but possibly unaware of the sale. In 2007 Maloof, a regular at auction houses and car boot sales, bought a box of negative film for $380. It is now exhibited in prestige galleries, sells as relatively expensive artwork and is compared to the work of major male and female professional photographers.įinding Vivian Maier is written and directed by John Maloof with Charlie Siskel. Essentially her work falls into ‘street photography’. However, she has achieved posthumous fame because of the quality of her photographic work, unknown and little seen in her lifetime. She worked most of her adult life as Nanny with various families in New York and Chicago. Vivian Maier was a New Yorker, of French parentage, born 1926 and died 2009. There was also a post-screen discussion, again unfortunately cut short by limitations of time. The screening at the Hyde Park was introduced by Helen Grant from the College of Art & Design: briefly as there was a large audience turnout and we started a little late. The screening accompanied an exhibition of the work of female photographers at the Village Bookstore and Gallery, ending with a Round Table Discussion, including ‘the effectiveness of the ‘female only’ curatorial approach. This film was screened at the Hyde Park Picture House as part of a programme titled The Female Gaze. Happy End (France-Austria-Germany 2017).Servants / Sluzobníci, Slovakia, Romania, Czech, Republic Ireland, 2020.Jean-Luc Godard, December 3rd 1930 to September 13th September 2022.

Vivian maier photos for sale