Vivian Maier was an American amateur street photographer who worked for about forty years as a nanny in Chicago. During those years she took about 100,000 photographs, primarily of people and cityscapes mainly in Chicago. Her photographs remained unknown and mostly undeveloped until they were discovered by a local historian, John Maloof, in 2007, who tried to contact her only to discover she died (April 21, 2009) several days earlier at the age of 83 after slipping on some ice hitting her head.. Her photos, some 100,000 remained hidden her entire life, tens of thousands have yet to be seen as she left boxes of undeveloped film rolls.
It's best that you watch the Youtube Video below to see the full story of Vivian Maier and how her work was recently discovered.
The first American exhibition of her photos Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer is on now at the Chicago Cultural Center
