William Harvey Pierson Jr. (June 4, 1911 – December 3, 2008) was an American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

. Teaching studio art and art history at

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

for most of his career, Pierson was in large part responsible for the development of the cadre of Williams-educated museum curators and art historians now known as the Williams Art Mafia, including Earl A. Powell III of the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

in Washington DC, Glenn D. Lowry of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York, James N. Wood of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

and the

J. Paul Getty Trust The J. Paul Getty Trust is the world's wealthiest art institution, with an estimated endowment of US$7.7 billion in 2020. Based in Los Angeles, California, it operates the J. Paul Getty Museum, which has two locations—the Getty Center in the ...

and

Thomas Krens Thomas Krens (born December 26, 1946) is the former director and Senior Advisor for International Affairs of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City.''The New York Times'' staff.Guggenheim Foundation staff From the beginning of his ...

of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Born in

Bloomfield, New Jersey Bloomfield is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and an inner-ring suburb of Newark. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 53,105, an increase of 5,790 (+12.2%) from the 2010 census cou ...

, Pierson trained as a high-school student with

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

Charles Warren Eaton Charles Warren Eaton (1857–1937) was an American artist best known for his tonalism, tonalist landscapes. He earned the nickname "the pine tree painter" for his numerous depictions of Eastern White Pine trees. Youth Eaton was born in Albany, ...

. After earning

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in fine arts at

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

in 1934, he became the first person whom the school awarded a master's degree in fine arts. In 1941 he received a second master's, this time in art history from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Pierson joined the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

the day after

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

, working for the secret radio program. When the war finished, Pierson decided to return to Yale to undertake a Ph.D. in art history. His dissertation studied the industrial architecture of

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, and his passion for this subject remained with him for the rest of his career. In the 1970s, he campaigned to save a former mill in

Harrisville, New Hampshire Harrisville is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. Besides the town center, it also includes the villages of Chesham and Eastview. The population of the town was 984 at the 2020 census. It is a preserved 19th-century mill to ...

. Due to his efforts and those of others, Harrisville is the only 19th-century mill town that has survived largely intact into the 21st century. Having caught the eye of S. Lane Faison, head of the art history department at

, Pierson moved to Williamstown to teach studio art and American architecture in 1946. With Faison and their colleague Whitney Stoddard, Pierson worked continuously to turn Williams students towards careers in art history rather than law and finance. Their efforts resulted in a generation of Williams-educated curators who went on to lead some of the most distinguished museums and art collections in the United States. This group, whom the ''New York Times'' has termed the "Williams Art Mafia", include among its ranks Earl A. Powell III of the

in Washington DC, Glenn D. Lowry of the

in New York, James N. Wood of the

and the

and

of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Pierson, who was famous for tearing up his notes at the end of each of his lectures, emphasized the importance of maintaining the vitality and variety of his teaching throughout his thirty-year career. Pierson retired in 1973. Although teaching undergraduates was Pierson's foremost passion, he also authored a four-volume scholarly series entitled ''American Buildings and Their Architects'' along with William Jordy. In conjunction with the Society of Architectural Historians, he was also working on the sixty-volume ''Buildings of the United States'' Series, which catalogs the architectural history of each of the fifty states in addition to several major cities. Pierson died on December 3, 2008, in Williamstown, Massachusetts.William Pierson; art professor influenced generations of curators dies
''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' He is survived by two daughters and two granddaughters.

Books

*Pierson, William, H. Jr., and Davidson, Martha, editors, ''Arts of the United States: A Pictorial Survey'' (Athens GA : University of Georgia Press, 1966) *Pierson, William H. Jr., ''American Buildings and Their Architects: The Colonial and Neoclassical Styles'' (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1972) *Pierson, William H. Jr., ''American Buildings and Their Architects: Technology and the Picturesque'' (Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1972)

Other writings

*Pierson, William H. Jr., "The Beauty of a Belief: The Ames Family, Richardson, and Unitarianism," in Meister, Maureen, ed., ''H. H. Richardson: The Architect, His Peers, and Their Era'' (Cambridge MA:

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

, 1999)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierson, William Jr. 1911 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American historians American artists American architecture writers American male non-fiction writers American architectural historians American art historians Yale University alumni Williams College faculty 20th-century American male writers

Books

Other writings

See also

References