"Love can withstand the long years, and can overcome the ups and downs of mountains and seas." Nanny Vivian Maier used her unique life to interpret the true meaning of this sentence!
In the spring of 2009, Vivian Maier, who had been a nanny for 40 years, passed away alone in a nursing home at the age of 83.
A few months later, an article "Little Women, Big Photography: America in the 1950s through the Lens of a French Nanny" was published in the British "Independent". Vivian Maier and her photography came out, and the world was shocked. They called her the "Van Gogh" of photography.
From then on, she was no longer a little-known nanny, but a hot legend in the photography industry.
1. Auction, the windfall
"$380, deal!"
In the winter of 2007, a young writer named John Maloof was preparing to write a book about the history of Chicago, so he needed a lot of old photos as evidence.
In order to collect information, he took a large box of negatives from a photographer named Vivian Maier at an auction of overdue storage in a warehouse, with approximately more than 40,000 pictures.
After receiving the box of negatives, John got into work mode. Scan the box of negatives one by one.
However, there are not many records about the city of Chicago. Those photos are very comprehensive and cover a wide range of subjects and genres, including street photography, family photos, portraits, selfies, and landscape photos.
When these photos appeared in front of him one by one, he was slowly shocked by the pictures that appeared in front of him.
It seems that all living things have emerged from these still photos.
In a dilapidated house, a child clings to the glass. Although he was wearing very ordinary clothes, his eyes were looking forward, full of longing, as if he was full of curiosity about everything in the world.
On the train, a couple hugged each other and rested by the window. The scene was so harmonious and quiet that people passing by could not help but breathe softly.
There were endless newspapers piled up in the newsstand, and the boss fell asleep in a depressed mood.
The driver silently looked at the sweet couple on a date, and his envy could be felt through the screen.
Through the lens, Vivian presents the street stories of the 1970s and 1980s in a vivid and vital way.
John, who is often active at flea markets, has handled tons of negatives, but he has never felt like this.
He realized that these negatives were as precious as pearls and felt that Vivian must be a talented photographer. He decided to learn more about her.
2. Open the time capsule and look for Vivian Maier
However, when John looked up information about Vivian Maier with great expectation, he found that there was not even a shred of news about her on the Internet.
In desperation, he had to put the plan on hold temporarily. But John couldn't bear to live in a humble room with such a good work.
So he registered a photography blog and uploaded more than 200 photos.
As soon as these photos were released, they were enthusiastically received by netizens and received rave reviews.
John decided to collect Vivian's works. He found other buyers and bought Vivian's other boxes.
It turns out that the number of Vivian’s negatives is crazy!
This made John more curious about Vivian's identity. Is she a reporter or a professional photographer?
Two years later, John checked online again, and this time he saw the information about Vivian Maier in an obituary.
John couldn't help but pick up the phone and call the person who sent the obituary: "I have Vivian Maier's works, but I know nothing about her..."
"She was my nanny!" the other party said.
After John heard this, he was shocked: "Nanny?"
This is an identity he had never imagined! However, what the other person said next aroused John's curiosity even more.
"Vivian has been lonely all her life. As far as we know, she has no family, no lover, and no children, but she is like our second mother."
It turns out that Vivian has worked in his family ( Gensburg home) for 17 years, and the three brothers were all brought up by Vivian. When they grew up, Vivian left their home and "wandered" around.
They found Vivian only a few years ago and rented an apartment for her to take care of her in her later years. But Vivian never mentioned her photography to the three brothers.
In 2008, Vivian's physical condition declined sharply due to a fall, and she died of illness a year later.
After hearing this, John couldn't help but feel a little frustrated. He felt that the clue was broken, but he still asked unwillingly: "Then did she leave anything behind?"
"I have always kept the list of her storage box. She is like a pack rat, she likes to collect all kinds of things, but we are all ready to throw them away."
John immediately stopped him and got the opportunity to deal with the relics in Vivian's storage box together.
So he and the Gensburg brothers went to the storage warehouse. He found a large box sealed with tape. When he opened it, he saw a box of undeveloped film.
What’s interesting is that he picked up a film box and shook it. There was a rattling sound inside. When he opened it, he saw that a fallen tooth was preserved inside.
John realized that sorting and scanning these negatives required a lot of time and energy and could not be done by one person.
So, he contacted Tate Modern, hoping to use their power to let more people see Vivian's works.
However, the other party thought it was ridiculous to spend a lot of manpower to scan the work of an unknown photographer. So John was rejected.
John decided to do it on his own and began scanning like crazy, a process that lasted nearly two years.
When all the photos were archived and selected by the Chicago Cultural Center, John worked with the organizers to create a special exhibition for Vivian Maier. This exhibition set a record for the largest number of visitors in the center’s exhibition history.
This exhibition has been reported by major media. They call Vivian Maier the Van Gogh of photography, a great photographer comparable to Harry Callahan.
Some media even said that Vivian rewrote the history of American photography, labeling her a "genius photographer" and a "mysterious nanny."
John was greatly encouraged by this, and he decided to explore her life like Vivian with a camera.
Vivian once said: "My life is in boxes."
Her hundreds of boxes are the best clues to reveal her life. Vivian's box is like a time capsule, containing everything: coupons, notes, flyers, tickets, hats, shoes, shirts, coats, more than 100,000 negatives, 700 rolls of undeveloped color film, and 2,000 rolls of undeveloped black and white film.
John found a bunch of receipts from Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s in the box, but they only had phone numbers and no area codes.
He was like looking for a needle in a haystack, adding area codes in front of each phone number and trying to make calls. After making countless calls, he finally found Vivian's employers.
Employers said that based on Vivian's accent, they guessed that she was French.
So John went to the National Archives in New York to check, only to find that his guess was wrong. She was a French-American.
Vivian was born in New York, USA on February 1, 1926. She never married or had any children.
She did grow up in France during her childhood. When she was young, she returned to the United States for a period of time to escape the war.
It wasn’t until Vivian was 25 years old that she returned to the United States alone.
The children that Vivian took care of when she was a nanny once said: Vivian took them to see life in the slums and even went to the livestock farm to see the carcasses of sheep, which made them more adventurous.
But she almost lost them because she was obsessed with taking pictures.
Once Vivian found a material worth shooting, and quickly got into the alley, completely forgetting their existence. When the police found them later, they warned them not to run around and to follow adults.
They shouted in their hearts: We are the ones left behind by adults!
Another time, the child she was taking care of was hit by a car. Instead of staying with the child, she hid aside and took pictures of this meaningful scene, the state of the child, the parents of the child rushing in, and the expressions of people watching...
Talk show host Phil Donahue was once Vivian's employer. He said that he once saw Vivian taking pictures of a trash can and found it very strange.
John discovered that the photos of France in 1949 and 1959 were both taken in the same village, so he guessed that Vivian might have relatives in France.
Based on a clue about a spire in the photo, he searched through countless photos of small French villages online. After some fingerprint comparison, he finally found the small shepherd villages of Saint-Julien and Saint-Bonette in the French Alps with a population of only 250 people.
Sure enough, the residents of this small town were deeply impressed by Vivian, because in the 1950s, few people would take pictures unless it was a church event or a wedding.
But Vivian often walked along Champso with her camera, intoxicated by the mountain scenery and fascinated by the working people, which was very strange in the eyes of the locals.
"I'm a spy!" Vivian said once when she was asked what she did for a ride. Indeed, Vivian is like a thief of time, lurking among the crowd and silently recording everything that happens, leaving traces of time.
3. Be invisible in the world and be a spy of the world
No one knows how Vivian became associated with photography.
However, it can be found from the 1930 census that Vivian’s mother took her to live with the famous female portrait photographer Jeanne Bertrand for a period of time. Although she was only 4 years old at that time, perhaps the seeds of photography took root in her heart at this time.
In a village in France, John found Vivian's only surviving relative's cousin. From his mouth, John learned that Vivian's mother was also a photography enthusiast and she owned a Kodak Brownie camera.
In 1949, Vivian took her first photo in France, using the same camera. This camera does not need to focus, just press the shutter. It is commonly known as a point-and-shoot camera.
In 1952, Vivian spent a lot of money to buy a Rolleiflex double-lens reflex camera. This camera does not need to extend the lens, and the viewport is above. When taking pictures, you have to lower your head and look down. This way, it is not easy to be discovered when taking secret photos, and it is conducive to capturing the most natural expression.
Vivian said that when she first arrived in New York, she worked as a female worker in a sweatshop, but she quickly quit because of the intense work and lack of private time. She hopes to bask in the sun every day. As for work, as long as she can earn money to buy film, it is enough.
She lurked alone on the streets of Chicago late at night, waiting for gangsters to appear. She was even arrested for bravely entering a murder scene.
"Vivian has a completely free spirit. She has no interest in material life." An employer said.
In 1959, Vivian received an inheritance, which was a house in her hometown in France. After selling it, she used the money in exchange to spend eight months traveling from Africa to Asia. She traveled to Egypt , Syria , India, Thailand, Vietnam, China and other places, and took more than 20,000 valuable photos.
In Egypt, she looked at the pyramids and was immersed in the civilization and mystery of ancient Egypt .
In Vietnam, she silently observed the lives of people in a poor country.
She used the camera in her hand to purely record everything she saw.
It can be said that Vivian devoted all her energy to her beloved photography. She continued to enrich her spiritual world while walking, observing, and traveling.
Employers said that if Vivian was still alive, she would not want the photos to be made public.
But John found a letter written in French, but he didn't know why he didn't send it. It was written by Vivian to a photography research institute in France. She said in the letter that she was very happy to learn that the other party had turned her landscape photos into postcards. She also had a lot of excellent negatives in her hand. She hoped to cooperate again and gave them to the other party to develop and print them, and specified that they should be made into matte effects.
Vivian told the children she took care of to be themselves and do what they loved, and she did it herself.
Some people say that Vivian must be very lonely as she has never been married and has no children. However, no one is Vivian herself. We can only get a glimpse of her life from the clues found in the time treasure boxes she left behind.
Because she left almost no words to this world, nor did she leave any notes on her works. She never married and seemed to have spent her whole life alone.
However, the works she left behind are an interesting mixture of loneliness and gregariousness. She walked into the lively streets but became invisible in them.
No one can get close to her state of mind, but her works tell us that she understands the ability to enter the world of strangers.
