Willard Van Dyke

Eminent American documentarian who began his career as a still photographer, co-founding the renowned f.64 group (which included Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham) in 1932 and earning acclaim for his portraits of migrant workers. Van Dyke entered film as the co-photographer of Pare Lorentz's celebrated history of the Mississippi Basin, "The River" (1937). He then set up American Documentary Films Inc. with Ralph Steiner and together they directed, photographed and produced another monumental documentary, "The City" (1939), with an outline by Lorentz and an affecting score by Aaron Copland. Van Dyke's other notable works include "Valley Town" (1940), with music by Marc Blitzstein, a series of films made for the Office of War Information during WWII (such as "Steel Town" 1943), "San Francisco" (1945)--the official film on the founding of the United Nations--and "Skyscraper" (1958), described by co-director Shirley Clarke as "a musical comedy about the building of a skyscraper." Van Dyke served as director of the Museum of Modern Art's film department from 1965 to 1973.