WTimothy Asch was a noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. Along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of visual anthropology. He is particularly known for his film The Ax Fight and his role with the USC Center for Visual Anthropology.
WMarcus John Banks, born 4 July 1960 in Liverpool; died 23 October 2020 in Oxford was a visual anthropologist who originally worked with Jains in Leicester, UK and Jamnagar, Gujarat, India. He was a prominent figure in the development of visual anthropology in the late 20th Century and early 21st Centuries.
WGuido Boggiani (1861–1902) was an Italian painter, draftsman, photographer, and ethnologist who in 1887 traveled through the interior of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay to document the lives of Indians in the region. Now hailed as a "pioneer of fieldwork" in Italian ethnology, he was ritually killed by natives in 1902.
WJohn Collier Jr. was an American anthropologist and an early leader in the fields of visual anthropology and applied anthropology. His emphasis on analysis and use of still photographs in ethnography led him to significant contributions in other subfields of anthropology, especially the applied anthropology of education. His book, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method (1967) is one of the earliest textbooks in the field and is still in use today. He is also notable as someone who overcame significant learning and hearing impairments to succeed on a larger stage.
WMimmo (Domenico) Cozzolino is an Australian graphic designer and photo media artist best known for his gently satirical design and research on Australian historic trademarks.
WChristoph von Fürer-Haimendorf or Christopher von Fürer-Haimendorf was an Austrian ethnologist and professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London. He spent forty years studying tribal cultures in Northeast India, in the central region of what is now the state of Telangana and in Nepal.
WAlfred Antony Francis Gell, was a British social anthropologist whose most influential work concerned art, language, symbolism and ritual. He was trained by Edmund Leach and Raymond Firth and did his fieldwork in Melanesia and tribal India. Gell taught at the London School of Economics, among other places. He was also a Fellow of the British Academy. He died of cancer in 1997, at the age of 51.
WDavid MacDougall is an American-Australian visual anthropologist, academic, and documentary filmmaker, who is known for his ethnographic film work in Africa, Australia, Europe and India. For much of his career he co-produced and co-directed films with his wife, fellow filmmaker Judith MacDougall. In 1972, his first film, To Live with Herds was awarded the Grand Prix "Venezia Genti" at the Venice Film Festival. He has lived in Australia since 1975, and is currently a professor in the Research School of Humanities & the Arts at Australian National University.
WJudith MacDougall is an American visual anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, who has made over 20 ethnographic films in Africa, Australia and India. For many of the films, she worked with her husband, David MacDougall, also an anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker. Both of them are considered among the most significant anthropological filmmakers in the English-speaking world.
WJohn Kennedy Marshall was an American anthropologist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording the lives of the Juǀʼhoansi.
WMargaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College in New York City and her MA and PhD degrees from Columbia University. Mead served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1975.
WBarbara Myerhoff was an American anthropologist, filmmaker, and founder of the Center for Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California.
WRichard Randolph "Randy" Olson is a marine biologist-turned-filmmaker who earned his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University (1984) and became a tenured professor of marine biology at the University of New Hampshire (1992) before changing careers by moving to Hollywood and entering film school at the University of Southern California.
WJean Rouch was a French filmmaker and anthropologist.
WPenny Wolin, also known as Penny Diane Wolin and Penny Wolin-Semple, is an American portrait photographer and a visual anthropologist. She has exhibited solo at the Smithsonian Institution and is the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and one grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is held in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Layton Art Collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the American Art Museum, administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Known for her documentary and conceptual photographs, she has completed commissions for major corporations, national magazines and private collectors. For over 30 years, she has used photographic portraiture with oral interviews to research Jewish civilization in America.
WSol Worth was a painter, photography and visual communication scholar. His parents, Ida and Jacob Wishnepolsky, were Russian immigrants who worked in the garment industry and were active members of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. His first language was Yiddish, and he spoke virtually no English until he began school at age 5. Worth attended the founding class of the High School of Music and Art in New York City as an art student from 1936 until 1940; in 1937 one of his paintings was chosen to be part of a student exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Upon graduation from high school he attended the State University of Iowa, where he studied with the painter Philip Guston. He graduated in 1943 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting, but entered the Navy before graduation and did not formally receive his diploma until already on board the USS Missouri in the Pacific. While in the Navy, Worth served as helmsman on the Missouri and was later assigned to Military Intelligence at the Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii.