Collection Information

Size: Transcript: 34 pages

Format: Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav file. Duration is 1 hr., 53 min.

Summary: An interview of Nina Perera Collier conducted 1964 October 23, by Sylvia Loomis for the Archives of American Art.

Collier speaks of her background and parental influence; her education at Columbia University; coming to Washington in 1932; working for the Public Works of Art Project on a survey of Indian arts and crafts work; her work for the Index of American Design; work on other Federal Art Project programs; her post-W.P.A. career, including working for the Cultural Relations division of the State Department; going to Bolivia and working on educational programs; her feelings about government support for the arts; political problems with the project; and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Biographical/Historical Note

Nina Perera Collier (1907- ) is an art administrator in Alcade, New Mexico. Worked on various federally supported art programs during the Depression.

Provenance

This interview conducted as part of the Archives of American Art's New Deal and the Arts project, which includes over 400 interviews of artists, administrators, historians, and others involved with the federal government's art programs and the activities of the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s.

Transcript: microfilm reel 3418 (frames 917-952) available at Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.

Transcript: Patrons must use microfilm copy.

Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Nina Perera Collier, 1964 October 23. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.