Maggie Diaz News

Coming or Going, Diaz Melbourne 60s

This image from the latest batch of scans.  It took me a little while to realise that this is actually a self-portrait.  In the 1960s, Maggie would often go down to the Port Melbourne Wharf and watch the boats come in…particularly the Royal Canberra, which was the ship she had arrived on (with a one-way ticket) in 1961.  I think she was asking herself ‘How did I get here?’ and ‘Will I ever go home?’  The first ten years of Maggie’s time in Melbourne, she had every intention of getting back on the boat, but somehow she ‘never had the loot!’

Well folks,  it’s now official:  We have an invitation from Jeff Goldstein of Vivian Maier Photography to go to Chicago and have a joint show with the extraordinary works of Vivian Maier.  

http://vivianmaierprints.com/

This is Maggie’s chance to take her work to Chicago and return home for the first time in 50 years. 

Today – Friday 25th February, is Maggie’s 86th birthday!

We are celebrating by posting 3 great Maggie videos on U-Tube: 

Maggie Diaz – Sunday Arts story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iasVRAoEd5o  

Maggie Diaz  – ‘I Don’t Do Sweet’  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbpj8caQy8k

Maggie Diaz – Dallas Kinney Tribute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siPNXj_nMls    

The ABC story is a great overview of the project and introduction to Maggie if you don’t know the story. I Don’t Do Sweet is a modified version of the slide show with Maggie’s commentary, and The Dallas Kinney Tribute puts Maggie in an American context photographically. Dallas had been searching for Maggie for 48 years to thank her for launching him into the business. From his “accidental apprenticeship” he went on to win a Pulitzer for photo-journalism, took the last official portraits of Bobby Kennedy and was the only press photographer at Martin Luther King’s funeral.

We are in the process of handing over the entire Diaz Collection to The State Library of Victoria and scanning samples as we go, so I look forward to sharing new images as we find them. Maggie will feature in a group show at The State Library in July 2011 which celebrates commercial photographers of the 1930s – 1960s Melbourne. We look forward to sharing more information about this soon.

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is also featuring Maggie as a Core Artist this August, so get yourself organized to visit Ballarat between the 20th of August and 18th of September, 2011 to see Diaz – Unseen   http://www.ballaratfoto.org/bifb11/splash.html  

Finally for this first edition, I must pay tribute to John Maloof and Jeff Goldstein of the Vivian Maier Collection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEDOnBfDUI. This link was sent to me by Dallas Kinney, with the words ‘Déjà vu Gwen?’ If you’ll watch it you’ll see why. It is an extraordinary story of an unknown, master street photographer of Chicago, who like Maggie, was NOT a woman of her time and whose collection is only now being revealed.  The deep connection with Chicago, the era of the photographs and the character of the woman, along with all the mysterious elements is uncanny. 

I must thank John, Jeff and the Vivian Maier team giving me the boost of energy that I have needed to launch this blog and share Maggie’s work with a wider audience, but most importantly – do it while Maggie is still around to enjoy it!  Who knows? We may get this prodigal ‘one-eyed’ daughter home to Chicago for a show yet!

More about the eye next time…as I have said before, Maggie thought having her left eye removed was a fate worse than death, but now she’s quite happy she survived!

Gwen and Maggie