EP 185: Paris History Avec a Hemingway (Vivian Maier)

Vivian Maier stacks up next to many of the greatest photographers of our time, but she never planned on being seen. Born February 1, 1926 to a French mother and an Austrian-American father she would be remembered as never without her camera after the age of 10. Vivian’s parents separated when she was just three and in 1932 she left for her mother's native France. Influenced by Jeanne Bertrand an artist and photographer and close friend to her mother, she began to take photos around the small Haute Alps village. 

In 1951, Vivian was hired as a  nanny for a Southampton family. In 1956 she moved to Chicago and began to work with the Gensburg family and their three boys who would remain in her life until her death. A series of families followed and each move included her 200 boxes filled with every single piece of her life including hundreds of undeveloped film canisters. 

In 2007, Jon Maloof, a young Chicago real estate investor bought a new house and wanted to write a history of the area and needed some old photos. At the auction house across the street, he found a large collection of negatives and film. He placed a bid on the largest box for $380 and that was the start of an obsessive hunt. Once he began to look at the photos he was stunned by how amazing they were. He tried to find info on the photographer but she was totally unknown. 

In 2008, a year before she died Jon Maloof began to upload her photos one by one onto Flickr and became an instant sensation. In 2009 after he found her name it led to the Gensburg boys and they told him to take whatever they didn’t keep. Her life now came together before their eyes. 

The rest of the world finally discovered Vivian in 2013 when Finding Vivian Maier's documentary came out and was a hit. There was a court case against Maloof wondering if he did enough to find her heirs and a foundation in her name and a scholarship created by Maloof. Today her collection is featured in museums around the world and recently in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg which constantly had a line to attend. 

More info and photos: https://www.claudinehemingway.com/paris-history-avec-a-hemingway-podcast-1
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