Creative Matters

‘Dozens who thought they knew her’: Finding Vivian Maier?

Authors

  • Clare Brant King's College London

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5463/ejlw.4.138

Abstract

It’s not very often that a story comes along to astonish and excite, but the tale of Vivian Maier[M1]  is one such, and of such interest that I would like to alert our life writing community. I describe it through the film version in which I encountered it, though reviewers and others redescribe that tale in condensed ways also of interest as biographical micronarratives. The least you might know is the film’s description by its maker: ‘Finding Vivian Maier is the critically acclaimed documentary about a mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and, discovered decades later, is now among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never before seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.’

This article was submitted to the European Journal of Life Writing in August 2014 and published on 16 March 2015.

Author Biography

Clare Brant, King's College London

Clare Brant is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature & Culture at King’s College London, where she co-directs the Centre for Life-Writing Research; photography is one of her interests. Clare Brant is also one of the editors of the European Journal of Life Writing.

Published

2015-03-16

Issue

Vol. 4 (2015): EJLW

Section

Creative Matters

Copyright (c) 2015 Clare Brant

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.