Photographer Vivian Maier: A Search for Her Heir Began with Law School Studies…
One of the challenges of teaching a course called Wills, Trusts, and Estates, is drawing diagrams to chart intestate succession in an effort to explain what happens when you don’t create an estate plan (or your written estate plan has gaps or defects). I’m always looking for good stories to incentivize my students.
That’s one reason why I found “The Heir’s Not Apparent” by Randy Kennedy so interesting, as the New York Times writer describes the search for missing heirs of American photographer Vivian Maier, who died in 2009, apparently without a will. According to the article, a suit to establish the rights of a previously unknown heir, a first cousin in France, has been filed by Virginia attorney David Deal (himself a photographer), “who said he became fascinated with Maier’s life in law school and took it upon himself to try to track down an heir.”
Maier’s post-death fame as a “street photographer” has created a market for her huge cache of mostly unpublished photos, part of which was purchased by an individual for $380 in a thrift auction in Chicago. However, the suit rests on the premise that “[u]nder federal copyright law, owning a photographer’s negative or a print is distinct from owning the copyright itself. The copyright owner controls whether images can be reproduced and sold.”
A 2014 documentary, Finding Vivian Maier, helps to give “color” to her interesting story of a life quietly filled with black and white photographs.