Background
Asch was born in Southampton, New York and attended The Putney School.
anthropologist director educationist
Asch was born in Southampton, New York and attended The Putney School.
He studied at Columbia University, where he received his Bachelor of Surgery in anthropology in 1959.
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 University of Southern California Center for Visual Anthropology. While at Columbia, he served as a teaching assistant for Margaret Mead, who encouraged his work in visual anthropology.
From 1950-1951, he served apprenticeships with Minor White, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams through the San Francisco Art Institute (formerly known as the California School of Fine Arts).
He received his Master of Arts in African Studies from Boston University (with an anthropology concentration at Harvard University) in 1964. Asch was known for his work as an ethnographic filmmaker on the Yanomami in conjunction with Napoleon Chagnon.
He also worked in Indonesia with anthropologists Linda Connor, James J. Fox and East. Douglas Lewis. In 1968, Asch and John Marshall co-founded Documentary Educational Resources (DER), a non-profit organization whose mission is to support, produce, and distribute ethnographic, non-fiction, and documentary films.
Asch"s film work continues to be distributed through DER. Asch taught at New York University, Brandeis University, and Harvard University, and was a Research Fellow at the Australian National University prior to joining the University of Southern California ( University of Southern California) in 1982.
During his period at University of Southern California, he was involved with the Margaret Mead Film Festival. Asch acted as Director of the Center for Visual Anthropology up until his death from cancer on October 3, 1994. The Spring 1995 issue of Visual Anthropology Review (Volume(s) 11, No1) was dedicated to Asch.
Zsa Zsa Gershick, "ETHNOGRAPHIC FILMMAKING PIONEER TIMOTHY ASCH DIES", University of Southern California News, 17 October 1994, University of Southern California.