Some people thought she was nice some people thought she was mean. In the book, I kind of start off with that because they’re just such opposites.

One was all the different adjectives that everyone used to describe Vivian. There were two things after I watched the documentary that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Was there a particular aspect of Maier’s life or work that initially piqued your curiosity? The following has been edited for length and clarity. We caught up with Marks, a retired chief marketing officer of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, by phone to talk about some of the insights she uncovered. In Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny (Atria Books, December 7), Marks dived into exhaustive genealogical research, analysis of all 140,000 of Maier’s extant images, and other personal records to offer a portrait of a woman who “overcame tremendous family obstacles to lead a full, satisfying life on her own terms.” Maier’s story and her work have been the subject of numerous publications and exhibitions and a documentary, Finding Vivian Maier was made in 2013.Photograph: Vivian Maier/Simon & Schusterīut a new biography by first-time author Ann Marks - who became fascinated by Maier after seeing the 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary Finding Vivian Maier, produced by John Maloof, Charlie Siskel, and actor Jeff Garlin - suggests that a lot of what we think we know about Maier may be wrong. These were purchased by a Chicago-based auctioneer who put the containers into auction, a large number of which were purchased by John Maloof, founder of the Vivian Maier archive. Whilst hospitalised, the contents of her storage containers were sold to clear debts. Maier stored her growing number of photographic negatives in storage containers as her reclusive behaviour escalated and she faced increasing financial difficulties. Her work records the shifting climate of 1950s and 1960s America. Maier amassed a significant archive of street photography, while also turning the camera on herself to create self-portraits that play with the nature of photographic representation.

Maier was prolific, frequently using a roll of film a day, though she remained secretive about her work, rarely showing it to anyone. Her photographs were taken using a concealed lens to give her work its untempered character. Maier would use her Rolleiflex twin lens camera to capture the lives of people – portraits of distinctive individuals, urban structures, children at play were her most consistent subjects. Vivian Maier worked as a nanny and pursued photography in her spare time, focusing on the streets of central Chicago and New York as her subject.

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