This American Life - Live! includes the Vivian Maier story at a theater near you May 10th.

For more information on this program including tickets and participating theaters, please visit:

www.thisamericanlife.org

Note: there will also be an encore presentation at select movie theaters on may 15th.

We'd like to share several new articles from the NYT about Vivian Maier

LENS

NYT Magazine

NYT Magazine's blog

NYT Style section




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Vivian Maier Events in New York & Atlanta with Curator John A. Bennette
 
John A. Bennette is a collector, curator, lecturer, writer, and the art director for South x Southeast Magazine. John curated the first Vivian Maier exhibition in New York, in the summer of 2011, at the Hearst Tower.  This February John will be hosting a guided gallery tour at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York as well as a tour at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta in addition to a talk at the Serenbe Photography Center in Georgia.
  

 
STEVEN KASHER GALLERY
Gallery Tour with John Bennette
 
Saturday, February 18th, 11am 
 
521 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011 
212.966.3978
info@stevenkasher.com
www.stevenkasher.com
 

--------------------------

 
JACKSON FINE ART
Gallery Talk with John Bennette
 
Thursday, February 23rd, 6:30pm 
 
3115 East Shadowlawn Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30305
404.233.3739 
info@jacksonfineart.com
www.jacksonfineart.com
 

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SERENBE PHOTOGRAPHY CENTER
Collector's Guild with John Bennette & Vivian Maier
 
Friday, February 24th, 7-9pm 
 
9110 Selborne Lane
Chattahoochee Hills, GA 30268 
770.463.9098
info@serenbephotographycenter.com
www.serenbephotographycenter.com

Photos on display at SPC courtesy of Jackson Fine Art.
 

January 27th - April 7, 2012

JACKSON FINE ART
3115 East Shadowlawn Avenue
Atlanta, Georgia 30305 

404.233.3739 


info@jacksonfineart.com
www.jacksonfineart.com

Starting January 12th, the Vivian Maier exhibit will run along side Weegee's "Naked City".

To say Vivian Maier's reach is far flung is an understatement.  Ironically, for someone who seemed to prefer obscurity, her photographic legacy has developed a large global following embraced by all walks of life, both photographers and non-photographers alike. 

In the spirit of the holidays we would like to give a special “shout out” to our buddy SSgt. Patrick Kavanaugh better known as "Kav" who is currently stationed abroad.  Kav is a photographer as well as a Marine, and his photographs can be viewed at:  kavanaughmp.smugmug.com

Kav is a great example of what a good and growing artist/photographer does, keeping his nose to the grindstone regardless of  the circumstances.  For arduous circumstances in the right hands can serve as a spring board elevating both the artist and viewer.

As odd as it may sound, I think this is very much a holiday image.  It serves as a reminder to those of us comfortably going about our routines that others elsewhere are facing more challenging situations while simultaneously serving others. In a tight package, the image portrays an ironic balance of creativity and destruction.  Kav, the central fulcrum of the teeter-totter, balances out the machine gun on one side with the Graflex Speed Graphic camera on the other.  Both devices made to shoot, and both very powerful. Let's hope the camera wins.

To Kav and all his brothers and sisters serving, to those that have lost life and/or limbs, and to the families of those serving; we express our incredible and deepest appreciation.

For all, we, the Vivian Maier team in its entirety, wish you the best for your holiday season and well into the new year. We are thankful for all those who have extended themselves toward the project, and kind thoughts are sent to all artists and their supporters, past, present and future. 

Like the camera in Kav's photo, Vivian Maier captures our hearts and minds. The camera, "art" and Vivian Maier all leave us with a sense of hope.

Happy Holidays!

Jeffrey Goldstein
President
Vivian Maier Prints Inc.

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A wonderful parade shot from Ms. Vivian Maier. Chicago.

©Toby Old 2011

“Photography is a very nice hobby.” - Sid Kaplan


It was almost love at first sight. A few years ago, I was sent links to web sites about the discovery of Vivian Maier’s photographs and negatives at a storage bin auction in Chicago. Some of the photographs posted then seemed to me first rate, combining visual sophistication, a photographic eye, and a personal vision of the social, quotidian world.

Read More...

By Rob Lim & Lauren Lim from Photography Concentrate

Read More...

Running now through November 12th is a wonderful display of 52 posthumous prints and numerous original prints by Vivian Maier.

See the exhibition page here
or visit the gallery site here directly

Vivian Maier Prints Inc. pleased to announce that the "Vivian Maier, Photographer" exhibition will be traveling from Russell Bowman Art Advisory in Chicago to the Hearst Gallery in Manhattan courtesy of the Hearst Corporation. This exhibition will be curated by acclaimed photography curator, John A. Bennette. 

Both vintage and contemporary silver gelatin prints will continue to be available through Russell Bowman Art Advisory in Chicago.  For more information, please contact Natalie Waechter at 312-751-9500 or via email at info@bowmanart.com

RUSSELL BOWMAN ART ADVISORY
311 West Superior Street, #115
Chicago, Illinois 60654-6739
312.751.9500 • info@bowmanart.com
www.bowmanart.com

A few quick shots from the wonderful Vivian Maier Exhibit held at the SOLID Sound Music and Arts Festival June 24th-26th, 2011. The show was curated by Patrick Sansone.

MASS MoCa, North Adams, Massachusetts

VIVIAN MAIER PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT 
Vivian Maier’s photographic work, which intimately documents mid-century life namely in Chicago and other American cities, first came to light in 2007 when boxes of her work, including hundreds of rolls of undeveloped film, were discovered in an abandoned storage locker. In recent months, Maier’s incredible story continues to unfold and her impressive body of work thus far has been heralded by both critics and international publications alike. Vivian Maier was born in New York City, but spent much of her youth in France. Returning to New York in 1951 after months of international travel, she began to comb the American streets, documenting the city’s inhabitants and offering an intimate glimpse into urban lives and relationships (among other subject matter). Maier moved to Chicago in 1956 where she worked as a longtime nanny for families in Chicago’s North Shore. Often referred to as an “eccentric Mary Poppins,” Maier continued to take photographs well into the 1990s, but almost never allowed her work to be viewed. Along with newspaper clippings and other historical artifacts, Maier stashed hundreds of undeveloped rolls of film and photographs in a storage locker, where they were later deemed abandoned and auctioned off. Maier died in 2009 in a nursing home at the age of 83. This Vivian Maier exhibit offers a glimpse into her world via 40 posthumous archival prints selected and curated by Patrick Sansone of Wilco from the Jeffrey Goldstein collection known as Vivian Maier Prints Inc.
http://solidsoundfestival.com/exhibits

The following entry is a Vivian Maier story written by Brian Levant of Los Angeles, whose family lived down the street from the Gensburgs (a family Vivian nannied for) in Highland Park, IL, in the 1960's.  Please note that the three photos associated with "Behind the Lens" are courtesy of the Levant family.

I picked up the phone and my sister in Chicago announced excitedly, “Vivian’s going to be famous!”…this seemed a bit incongruous as it seemed like only months earlier, my sister called and sadly intoned “Vivian died”.  In either instance, there was no question as to who Vivian was.  Growing up in the leafy confines of  Highland Park in the early sixties, our middle brother, Robbie was best friends with Lane Gensburg, the middle brother of the clan around the corner that employed Vivian Maier as a nanny for nearly two decades.



Our mother, Carole, who painted, seldom wore shoes in the summer and belonged to a book group which read Salinger, Mailer and Vonnegut…and whose leader, Hershel Gordon Lewis, would invent the splatter film.  She and Vivian got along well and eventually, Vivian began dropping by to visit, often shrugging off the fact that we might be in the middle of a meal or memorably, when Vivian strode into my parents’ bedroom at 7:30 on a Sunday morning and began holding forth on New Wave cinema, while my father lay uncomfortably beneath the sheets in his boxers. She was different, she was opinionated, she was memorable. It’s easier to imagine Vivian holding court in a Parisian cafe or fighting alongside the French Resistance than cutting the crusts off sandwiches and lacing ice skates.

But what always defined Vivian was the fact that she was a genuine “shutterbug”.

In a world swooning over Polaroids and Instamatics, Vivian, with her light meters, low ASA Pan X film and viewfinder that turned her subjects upside-down, was obviously an artiste, always shooting, chronicling life, but somehow maintaing her distance from it.  A half century later, I can still see her tooling around Sheridan Road on her motorized bicycle, trench coat flapping in the breeze, never without her beret or her trademark baby RolleiFlex dangling around her neck. But, even though the Gensburgs built her a darkroom, Vivian was always reluctant to share her work with anyone. That made the handful of photos that she did print of our family so special.



We were a family of four boys when our baby sister Jennifer arrived, and somehow, Vivian distilled our affection and  endless fascination with our new addition…as we’ve now seen her capture so many moments of isolation, despair, pride and hope.



I came home from college one holiday in the mid-seventies to hear that the Gensburgs had finally let Vivian go.  The boys had grown up… but they never forgot Vivian and took her in and supported her in her last years.

Looking at her stunning work today, it’s easy to visualize Vivian wandering the city on her days off, searching for faces, shadows and reflections that moved her… and hard to believe how close Vivian’s life’s work came to being lost — instead of lovingly rescued, exhibited and acclaimed. My mother thinks Vivian would’ve hated all the fuss surrounding her today… all I know is that her story is one of the greatest curtain calls of all time.

Recently, I found out that years ago, my mother and my sister (already married to a photographer), were standing in front of the Water Tower, when they spotted Vivian hanging out of a CTA bus taking a picture.  They met each others eyes and laughed.  The bus pulled away as Vivian waved madly.  Listening to their story, it felt like one of Vivian’s photos.

Brian Levant
Los Angeles
2011