Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny
by Ann Marks (Atria, $40)
“You will surely close this book feeling inspired,” said Marion Winik in
The Washington Post. Many mysteries previously obscured the life of Vivian Maier, a nanny who a decade ago won posthumous fame as a world-class street photographer. But author Ann Marks has performed “herculean” work to piece together a portrait of Maier that helps explain why the eccentric loner amassed 140,000 photo images that she mostly left in storage as undeveloped negatives. Marks argues that Maier overcame a traumatic childhood and mental illness to fashion a life built around her photographic endeavors. Because the “engrossing” biography Marks has written is interlaced with reproductions of Maier’s exceptional snapshots of American life, reading the book is “like attending a wonderful slide lecture.”
Unfortunately, “the book is a case study for what responsible biographers shouldn’t do,” said Jeremy Lybarger in The New Republic. Despite the undeniable power of Maier’s photography, Marks treats her subject not as a full-fledged artist but as a mentally ill woman who compiled her archive of arresting images almost as a form of self-therapy. Yet Marks’ diagnosis rests on mere “drive-by psychologizing.” Granted, Maier (1926–2009) did become a hoarder, eventually collecting eight tons of newspapers, photographic material, and books. But discovering that Maier’s only brother was schizophrenic doesn’t justify reducing Maier to a guessed-at disorder.
Whatever its faults, Vivian Maier Developed is “far and away the most complete picture we have of the photographer to date,” said Marc Weingarten in The Wall Street Journal. Marks tracked down 30 people who knew Maier, including everyone still living who was once a child under her care. For some 40 years, beginning in her mid20s, Maier made her living as a nanny but spent her off hours roaming New York
City or Chicago with her camera—a prim, private figure who may remain forever not fully knowable. Marks, at least, “has given us a way of seeing Maier that deepens our understanding of the mystery.”