The Vanishing of Vivian Maier

Send us a text In Part II of Karl Maier’s story, we follow the final—and most defining—years of Vivian Maier’s older brother’s life. After childhood abandonment, incarceration, and repeated attempts at structure through institutions meant to replace family, Karl’s life becomes a cycle of conditional care: taken in, evaluated, and released—again and again. Orphanage. Prison. Military. Psychiatric hospitals. Each offering temporary stability, each ultimately withdrawing it. As Karl’s life narro...

Send us a text Before we return with our next full episode on Vivian Maier’s brother, Karl—currently in production—we’re pausing the series briefly to share an important court update. While there haven’t been headlines, the probate case connected to Vivian Maier’s estate has continued to move quietly through the court system. Recent docket entries show the judge allowing new filings, ordering the production of documents, and keeping the question of heirship under active review. In this short ...

Send us a text Before Vivian Maier became a photographic mystery, she was a child in a deeply fractured family. And before her work became trapped in probate court, her older brother Karl had already lived a life shaped by institutions. We begin Karl Maier’s story at the very beginning: his parents’ troubled marriage, the instability of his early home, and the moment that would quietly shape everything that followed. At just five years old, Karl was sent away to a children’s home. This ...

Send us a text When Vivian Maier died in 2009, she left behind no will, no known heirs, and no clear instructions for what should happen to the hundreds of thousands of photographs she’d quietly made over a lifetime. What she did leave behind was uncertainty — and once her work began to gain recognition, that uncertainty became a legal and moral fault line. In this episode of The Vanishing of Vivian Maier, we rewind the clock and trace the critical years when discovery turned into responsibil...

Send us a text When Vivian Maier died in 2009, she left behind over 100,000 negatives, hundreds of undeveloped rolls of film—and no will. Her belongings were sold off in storage auctions, her photographs scattered, and the county of Cook suddenly found itself the legal guardian of a genius no one knew existed. In this episode, host Teresa Porter unpacks what happens when art becomes evidence, when creativity is reduced to paperwork, and when a system built to handle bank accounts and sofas tr...

Send us a text In this special update episode of The Vanishing of Vivian Maier Podcast, host Teresa Porter shares the latest development in the ongoing legal proceedings surrounding Vivian Maier’s estate. Originally scheduled for a pivotal Cook County probate hearing on October 15, 2025, the case has now been continued to January 15, 2026, as the court allows new documentation to be filed. This delay—mysterious yet fitting—mirrors Maier’s own life story: layered, complex, and resistant to eas...

Send us a text How a Quiet Nanny’s Forgotten Negatives Redefined a Century of Street Photography She was one of the most gifted photographers of the 20th century—and for most of her life, no one knew it. In this opening episode of The Vanishing of Vivian Maier, host Teresa Porter traces the astonishing discovery of Vivian Maier’s work and the tangled story that followed. When more than 100,000 photographs were found in Maier’s unpaid storage units after her death, the quiet Chicago nanny inst...

Send us a text The Vanishing of Vivian Maier is a documentary-style podcast about beauty, discovery, and what happens when art outlives the artist. Hosted by Teresa Porter, the series traces how a quiet Chicago nanny with a Rolleiflex camera became one of the most celebrated street photographers of the 20th century — but only after her work was discovered in unpaid storage units. In this trailer, Teresa introduces the mystery and the movement behind the name that went viral in 2010: the story...