Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was one of the best street photographers of the 20th century and yet her vast body of work lay undiscovered until 2007, two years before her death.

Vivian moved from New York to Chicago in 1956 and spent the rest of her life there as a nanny, spending her free time taking photos and meticulously documenting the world around her. She always kept the photos to herself and it was by chance that her archive was eventually discovered.

When Vivian became poor in later life one of the storage lockers where she kept her vast collection of negatives (over 100,000 rolls, many of them undeveloped) was auctioned off as she failed to keep up payment for it and her work was acquired by local historian John Maloof. He managed to find the name of the mystery photographer but was unable to trace her whereabouts until he found an obituary notice in the Chicago Tribune.

Here are some of the many self portraits Maier took in her lifetime.