Artist Quote: “Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people. It’s a wheel. You get on, you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.” | About the Artist: Vivian bounced between Europe and the United States before coming back to New York City in 1951. By 1956 Vivian left the East Coast for Chicago, where she’d spend most of the rest of her life working as a caregiver. In her last years, Vivian became poor and was ultimately saved from being homeless by three of the children she had nannied earlier in her life. About the Artwork: In her leisure time Vivian would shoot photos that she zealously hid from the eyes of others. She was capturing the spontaneity of street scenes, finding unexpected moments in the everyday actions of normal people. Taking snapshots into the late 1990′s, Maier would leave behind a body of work comprising over 100,000 negatives. Maier’s massive body of work would come to light in 2007 when her work was discovered at a local auction house in Chicago by photography collector, John Maloof. Now, with roughly 90% of her archive reconstructed, Vivian’s work is part of a renaissance of renewed interest in the art of midcentury Street Photography. |
Sources:
http://www.vivianmaier.com/
http://www.vivianmaier.com/