John Collier, Jr. American, 1913-1992 John Collier, Jr. (born in Sparkill, New York) was among the talented group of documentary photographers who worked for Roy Stryker and the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression. Initially interested in painting, Collier served an apprenticeship with Maynard Dixon, husband of photographer Dorothea Lange, before taking classes in the early 1930s at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). During the 1930s he decided to pursue a photographic career and, although largely self-taught, credited Lange with introducing him to the medium. In 1941 Collier was hired by Stryker to photograph for the Historic Section of the fsa and the next year followed Stryker to the Office of War Information. After two years in the merchant marine (1943-45), Collier was again associated with Stryker, this time on the Standard Oil of New Jersey photographic project. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing throughout his career, Collier also worked on anthropological projects in South America, Canada, and the United States. In 1957 Collier was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the next year joined the faculty of the San Francisco Art Institute as an instructor of photography. He began teaching courses in anthropology at San Francisco State University in 1961. Six years later he published Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. M.M.