 Collier lived in Taos, New Mexico with his second wife Grace, until his death in 1968 at age 84.Having described the American society as "physically, religiously, socially, and aesthetically shattered, dismembered, directionless", Collier was later criticized for his romantic views about the moral superiority of traditional society as opposed to modernity.Philp says that after his experience at the Taos Pueblo, Collier "made a lifelong commitment to preserve tribal community life because it offered a cultural alternative to modernity...His romantic stereotyping of Indians often did not fit the reality of contemporary tribal life."