Update: The award presentation and free screening of Finding Vivian Maier has been moved from the Patio to the Portage Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee, on Sunday, February 8, at 7:30 PM.

It has already shut down the second-largest owner and presenter of her work, Jeffrey Goldstein, a Rogers Park artist and collector. Last month Goldstein announced the sale of the bulk of his Maier collection—17,500 black-and-white negatives—to Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery for an undisclosed sum.

Among the people captivated by what they saw of her work was a Virginia photographer and law student named David Deal, who says he learned about Maier in 2010, shortly after her photos started being disseminated online. “At first it was just the images,” Deal said in a recent phone interview. “Like the majority of people who see it, I thought it was wonderful work.” But his 20 years in professional photography had included several situations where his own copyrights were casually violated, and Deal says that “pretty early on it occurred to me that there was a very definite issue. These individuals did not have the copyright.”

In July, Cook County public administrator David Epstein was assigned the case by the court. He hired a private attorney, Colleen Chinlund of Arnstein & Lehr, to work on it. Shortly after that, notice went out to Maloof, Goldstein, and every gallery and publisher they’d dealt with, warning that there might be a copyright problem, and instructing them to save all records.

“The main thing is this,” Maloof says. “The value of this box [of Maier’s negatives] was 380 bucks when I bought it. Period. Nobody, including myself, had any idea that she would become this popular. My work and Jeff’s . . . has made [the collection] what it is. For them to try to punish us for doing that doesn’t seem right.”

“It’s so crazy,” Maloof says. “The state is saying ‘Congratulations for all you’ve done with Vivian Maier,’ and another part of the state is saying ‘We’re coming after you for all you’ve done with Vivian Maier.’

Sun 2/8, 7:30 PM Portage Theater 4050 N. Milwaukee 773-283-7244 theportagetheater.comFree