Maloof is, undoubtedly, the archvillain in A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife, cultivating the image of the “mystery nanny photographer” and even admitting this was what kept him going.

When the productions are not in his name he has shown less enthusiasm however: he refused to collaborate when the BBC arrived in Chicago to make their own documentary on Maier for Alan Yentob’s Imagine series when Bannos began working on this biography, Maloof set such high demands she found it impossible to work with him, thus denying her access to his collection. He has published three books of her photos and made a documentary, Finding Vivian Maier, released in 2014. As one blogger put it in 2014, Maloof could be described as a man who “just found an old photo in storage, attached name to it, claimed all rights and sold limited editions of that photo for thousands of dollars.” It is difficult to avoid Maloof when seeking out Maier’s photography. Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife is intended as “a counterpoint, a counternarrative, and a corrective” to the narrative spun primarily by the buyers of Maier’s boxes at the auctions of August 2007, and in particular, former real estate agent John Maloof, who has done more than anyone else to make Maier visible. This is exactly the story Pamela Bannos, in the first full biography of Maier, sets out to discredit. It is difficult not to be fascinated by the woman, who can be glimpsed in the various self-portraits she took throughout her life, casting her distinctive shadow on a pavement or a wall - the tall, austere figure with an angular face and a beguiling stare, always smartly dressed in 1950s-style skirt suits or overcoats regardless of what decade it actually was. It is, after all, a tale of mystery and intrigue: a woman who works as a nanny, never marries, says almost nothing about her life and childhood, dies in obscurity, dwarfed by the belongings she hoarded, only to be unveiled as one of the boldest and most poetic street photographers of the 20th century. The discovery of Vivian Maier caused a sensation in the art world, and her story has captivated many.

Some buyers, curious about the photos they found, began posting them on the internet. One buyer bought the whole lot, and put it up for sale again in four or five subsequent auctions, thus setting in motion the scattering of Maier’s work. The padlocks came off, and all her photos and old cameras, her stacks of newspapers, magazines, and other items, went up for blind auction. But in the months before she died on April 21, 2009, aged 83, her storage lockers went into arrears. She was perceived by the locals in her Rogers Park neighborhood as a cantankerous old bag lady who ate food out of cans.

TO MANY, Vivian Maier is known as the mysterious Chicago nanny who took photographs secretly - thousands and thousands of photographs, often left as undeveloped rolls of negatives, which she then boxed up and stored in lockers.

Vivian maier photos for sale