Newly released photos and personal items once owned by Vivian Maier, the Chicago nanny who later gained world renown for her photography, are currently being auctioned.
The items, 33 lots consisting of photo prints and 17 lots consisting of a variety of items such as hats, dresses, costume jewelry and newspaper clippings Maier collected in binders, are being bid for online. Bidding, which starts at $100, will come to a close Oct. 7. The proceeds will go to charity.
The items are owned by John Maloof, the then Portage Park resident who unearthed her story when he unknowingly bought a box of photos at a local auction house in 2007 for $400 during a quest to find pictures to help him with a small book about Portage Park that he was co-writing on the side.
While the printed pictures did not show much of Portage Park, the thousands of negatives that Maloof would digitize and print over the next few years revealed something much more important — the discovery of a world-class artist whose story would go viral, both in Chicago and across the world.
Maloof was actually not the only person to discover Maier’s work — Chicago collectors Ron Slattery and Randy Prow also acquired some of Maier’s prints and negatives around the same time. Slattery first put some of Maier’s photographs online in 2008 but they went unnoticed. But in October 2009, after Maloof linked some of Maier’s photos that he put on his blog to image-sharing site Flickr, the results went viral. Maier died in April 2009, just months before the widespread attention.
Maier’s photos by themselves were enough for a great story, but the fact that she was a reclusive nanny who worked for two different North Shore families and never exhibited her work only added to the intrigue.
Maloof, now 44 and living in Skokie, said that he only reached out to the media one time, contacting someone at Chicago magazine around 2010 about his discovery. Since then, her story has been chronicled in news outlets around the world, numerous books have been published — two by Maloof — and her work has been exhibited around the world. In 2013, Maloof and Charlie Siskel made “Finding Vivian Maier,” a documentary that would be nominated for an Academy Award in 2014.
Also in 2014, the estate of Vivian Maier, administered by the public administrator of Cook County, issued citations to discover assets to Maloof and his company to obtain information concerning possible copyright claims held by the estate. Despite popular belief, Maloof points out that he was never sued and has never had to appear in a courtroom for anything regarding Maier. Two years after Cook County started the process to discover assets, a confidential settlement was reached between Maloof and Maier’s estate, which established a cooperative structure that allows Maloof to continue to bring Maier’s photography to light, according to the website of law firm Marshall Gerstein, the law firm that represented Maier’s estate.
Maloof, who said he owns about 120,000 of about 140,000 known negatives of Maier’s work, said only about 500 of her photos have ever been exhibited or published.
“We cherry-picked her best work,” Maloof said, adding that while there are still many exhibition-worthy photos that haven’t been shown, the number of negatives is misleading because photographers often take dozens of pictures to get that one great shot.
While the Maier negatives that Maloof owns are stored at a secured art storage facility outside New York City, other Maier items, such as luggage, hats, dresses, shoes and costume jewelry, have been in boxes in his basement collecting dust. He said he acquired the ephemera on a visit to the people Maier served as a nanny.
“I was giving them negatives of photos that they were in, and they were cleaning out a storage locker with her things,” Maloof said. “They were going to throw them away but gave them to me instead.”
Maloof said he decided to put the items up for auction with the proceeds going to the Soi Dog Foundation, a Thailand-based animal welfare organization that works to improve the welfare of stray dogs and cats across Asia, a cause that is close to his heart.
As for the items up for auction, Maloof said he believes Maier made her own dresses.
“She used to buy yards of fabric at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, and you can tell the dresses are handmade,” Maloof said. “There’s no tags, and you can tell the stitching has been made by a consumer-grade sewing machine.”
Along with several dresses, some of Maier’s hats, many of which she wore in self-portraits, are available, along with some of her costume jewelry and newspaper clippings that she kept in binders.
Rudy Aronoff, vice president of Heritage Auctions, said the auction house set the starting prices low — $100 for each lot, to keep the items accessible.
While it is not known how much money will be raised, Maloof said the items allow fans the ability to own a part of someone many have been intrigued by for several years now.
“I think it paints a picture of her in more of a specific way. Her hats are so iconic in her photographs, her overcoats. You can see her wearing some of her silver rings, especially in the later photographs,” Maloof said. “All these things are part of the portrait of Vivian Meier and if someone wants to own that, this is what’s being offered.”
Interested parties can find the items online at HA.com. The auction ends Oct. 7.