(Since Maier died in Illinois, her property will be dispensed according to the laws of that state.) Now it will be up to the probate court in Illinois to determine the correct heir, or heirs. It is a labyrinthine case, one that probably won’t be resolved any time soon, and may have the effect of keeping Maier’s work out of the public eye for years to come.Īs reported in The New York Times, Illinois’ Cook County public adminstrator’s office, the state agency charged with managing the estates of the deceased until rightful heirs are approved, created an estate for Maier back in early July. It is an otherworldly turn of events for a photographer who died, a complete unknown, in 2009.īut as a legal battle over her estate and, ultimately, control over copyright to her work, looms in Illinois, that box of her belongings is now looking like it may have belonged to Pandora. Maloof publishes a book of her work and makes a documentary about his discoveries. Maier is hailed by critics and photographers alike for her keen compositions. And they are stellar: stark black-and-white portraits of rumpled old men, mischievous street urchins and society ladies. The box, it turns out, contains images produced by Maier in the 1950s and ‘60s, many taken in Chicago and its environs, the city where she had lived and worked as a nanny for much of her adult life. The story of how the work of photographer Vivian Maier came to light is pretty wondrous: a young real estate agent named John Maloof purchases a box of Maier’s belongings at auction in 2007.
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