In the time since her work first emerged into the public eye, Vivian Maier became big business: Jeffrey Goldstein, who amassed his collection for 100,000,sold500,000 worth of her work in one year, and John Maloof’s film, Finding Vivian Maier, has grossed more than 3.5million.Athirdcollector,RonSlattery,suedagalleryfor2 million on account of damage to some Maier photographs. Some of Vivian Maier’s vintage prints are priced upwards of $12,000 apiece. There have been posters, brochures, postcards, and movie DVDs— not to mention the fortune to be made in licensing fees.
In my research, I found repeated themes that permeate both Vivian Maier’s work and the story of its discovery and propagation. High and low culture intermingle, with profound economic results; Maier’s work and her life are defined over and over again by presumptions about and representations of her as a woman; and both in life and work, no one can quite agree on her story, her character, and her value. Even in France, where she spent key parts of her childhood and young adulthood, opposing associations have claimed Maier’s legacy. Two men from opposite sides of Maier’s mother’s family have claimed to be her heir— with profound implications for those who claimed the right to reproduce and profit from her photographs.
Vivian Maier’s abundant legacy (more than four tons of stored boxes) was scattered at auction. As a result of the way her photographic work was dispersed and resold, dozens of people now own her possessions and pieces of her work. Since I began studying her fractured archive, I have found and been contacted by individuals who were at the auctions of her possessions and others who subsequently bought her belongings on eBay.