William H. Pierson Jr., 97
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. â€' William H. Pierson Jr., 97, of South Street, a pioneer in the field of American architectural history, died Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008, at home.
Mr. Pierson was the Massachusetts professor of art emeritus at Williams College, where he had taught for 33 years.
He was the last surviving member of the trio of distinguished art historians known jocularly as the "The Holy Trinity" that included himself, S. Lane Faison and Whitney Stoddard. This team, who remained close friends, together trained and inspired an extraordinary generation of undergraduates who became known as the "Williams Art Mafia." These students went on to lead such major American museums as the National Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the St. Louis and Dallas museums. The trio's academic progeny also included a president of the Rhode Island School of Design, and many distinguished art historians and collectors. In 1994, Williams established a chaired professorship in recognition of the trio, and later honored Pierson and the others with honorary degrees.
Though he always had a passion for architecture, Pierson was first a student of painting. Mentored while in high school by one of America's finest landscape painters, Charles Warren Eaton, he went on to earn a bachelor of fine arts in painting from Yale University in 1934, and the first master's degree in painting offered by the university in 1936. He was an avid admirer of classic art and gave instruction in life drawing to architects at Yale; among his pupils was young Eero Saarinen. He then shifted his focus to art history, obtaining a second master's degree in 1941 from New York University.
His dual degrees led to his being recruited by Faison to come to Williams in 1940. His initial assignment was to create a curriculum in studio art. As Pierson explained it, "The whole objective of the Williams art department was to teach people to see, to understand what they were seeing, and to be able to respond and think about what they were seeing."
Although he gradually relinquished his role in the studio art program, he never lost sight of his roots as a practicing artist. In 1997, Williams College honored him with an exhibit of 25 of his original paintings, watercolors and drawings at the Williams College Museum of Art titled "Bill Pierson: When I Was a Painter."
He retired in 1973 but remained active in the Williams community.
Raised in Bloomfield, N.J., he enlisted in the Navy the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and remained with the Reserves until 1971.
During the war, he was selected to participate in the secret development of radar, and served as a Combat Information Center officer in both the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters. Serving under Rear Adm. Calvin T. Durgin, he was recruited to oversee the design of radar installations on naval ships. In the Pacific, he was the officer responsible for aircraft and intership communication for the Commander Escort Carrier Force that provided support for landings. He earned a bronze star for his role in the decoy invasion in southern France in 1944, and Navy commendation ribbons for his participation in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns. He retired as a commander.
Pierson later reflected that his war-time absence from the United States, and the patriotism it engendered, fueled his interest in American art. His doctorate dissertation at Yale was on "Industrial Architecture in New England," one of the first to give scholarly attention to this topic.
Although Pierson dedicated most of his academic career to architectural and art history, he always retained a painter's eye. He was renowned for his exquisitely crafted lectures, delivered in a sonorous baritone voice that capitalized on his long training in singing. Priding himself on never giving the same lecture twice, he tore up his notes at the end of every class. He wrote numerous publications, mainly within the field of early American architecture. His principal scholarly achievement was the celebrated four-volume American Buildings and their Architects (1970-1978), which he co-authored with Brown University professor William H. Jordy, another painter-turned-historian. Many of the finest images in his books were photographs he had taken and printed in his own darkroom.
A life member and Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians, he was an originator and co-editor of The Buildings of the United States, a 60-volume series on American architecture. This scholarly survey of the buildings of every state was the most ambitious attempt to document American architecture since the WPA guides published during the Great Depression. Twelve volumes have already appeared.
Stemming from his doctoral dissertation, Pierson had an intense interest in the architectural history of Harrisville, N.H., the only completely intact early 19th-century industrial mill town remaining in New England. In the 1970s, when this family-owned mill complex was facing bankruptcy, Mr. Pierson helped create a non-profit organization "to revitalize, restore and preserve this unique and beautiful place." He served on the Board of Historic Harrisville Inc. Today, thanks partly to his vision and energy, it is a thriving community.
With his passion for American architectural history, he served as a charter member of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and on the board of the Society of Architectural Historians, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, and the Berkshire County Historical Society among others.
In 1956, Mr. Pierson won a grant and was appointed the executive secretary of the Carnegie Study of Art of the United States, a program to provide a comprehensive visual catalog of the entire history of American art, including architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts. The resulting set of high-quality color slides was selected as a gift by President Eisenhower for the crown prince of Japan and by President Kennedy for universities in Dublin and Berlin. These images are still used widely today.
Mr. Pierson was described as a kind and generous man, with a boundless, multifaceted enthusiasm for life. He pursued his many avocations with the same passion he devoted to his academic career. A serious student of music throughout his life, he put himself through Yale as a member of university choirs and the Stone Age Quartet. He also sang for many years with the Berkshire Choral Society and 1st Congregational Church choir. With a dual interest in voice and theater, he played leading roles in operatic performances at Williams.
Drawing on skills acquired in World War II, he became an avid private pilot and the faculty adviser of the Williams Flying Club. A devoted reader of Ralph Waldo Emerson from high school on, he often described himself as a "transcendentalist," and was most content, with fly rod in hand, immersed in the Maine wilderness. In his final years he remained actively engaged with friends and former colleagues at the daily "Stammtisch" lunch at the Williams Faculty Club.
His wife, the former Margaret Post, a sculptor, whom he married in 1936, died in 2002.
He leaves two daughters, Elizabeth Pierson-Rainey and Sally Pierson-Bennett, and two granddaughters.
FUNERAL NOTICE â€' A memorial service is being planned for the spring. Flynn & Dagnoli-Montagna Home For Funerals, West Chapels, in is charge arrangements.