Joseph Thurman Pearson Jr. (February 6, 1876 – February 23, 1951) was an American landscape and portrait painter, and an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Life and career He was one of the eight children of wooden box manufacturer Joseph T. Pearson, Sr. and Annie Virginia Wells, and grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.David B. Dearinger, "Joseph Thurman Pearson, Jr." Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design, Volume 1, 1826-1925, (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004), p. 437. He attended public schools,"PEARSON, Joseph Thurman, Jr.," The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 40 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1955), p. 176. and worked as a draftsman in the office of architect Wilson Eyre, 1894–1896.Joseph T. Pearson Jr., "The Painter and the Architect," Journal of the American Institute of Architects, vol. 5, no. 6 (June 1917), pp. 297-299.
Pearson attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on scholarship, 1896–1901, where he studied under William Merritt Chase and Julian Weir. PAFA awarded him a 1901 Cresson Traveling Scholarship, which enabled him to visit France, Germany and Spain. He studied privately with Weir following his return, and was hired by PAFA as an instructor in drawing. He taught at PAFA for a total of twenty-five years: 1909–1922, and 1924–1937.Brian H. Peterson, William H. Gerdts, Sylvia Yount, and Erika Jaeger Smith. Pennsylvania Impressionism, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 188-191. He also taught at PAFA's summer school in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.Harvey M. Watts, "Going to the Source of All Inspiration: Outdoors with the Pennsylvania Academy Summer School," Arts & Decoration Magazine, vol. 15, no. 4 (August 1921), pp. 222-223, 264.
He attained early notoriety as a landscape painter for works influenced by Japanese art, and often featuring birds and animals.Lula Merrick, "At the Philadelphia Academy," The Spur, vol. 17, no. 5 (March 1, 1916), p. 18. Among these was On the Valley, exhibited at PAFA in 1916: Joseph T. Pearson, Jr., has had his great moment this year; he reached a high note of achievement that does not often occur in the thorn-pricked paths of an artistic career. His "On the Valley" not only won the Edward T. Stotesbury prize for a painting never before exhibited—a prize which is awarded by the Directors—but he was also given the unanimous vote for the Temple gold medal by the painters' jury. The composition is distinctly decorative in treatment and very original in conception, with bare, sweeping hillsides, veiled in mist, in the distance, beneath which the still valley opens out before us. The arrangement of two geese and a haunting old tree-stump in the foreground realizes a special quality belonging to Mr. Pearson's art, and in the middle distance is suggestively shown a green bank and trees and a boat, broadly painted, flat in tone, remiscent perhaps of Puvis de Chavannes. There is much poetry and beauty in this picture and the artist has succeeded in making others feel as he felt, transversing the banks of the Schuylkill, the beautiful serenity of what lay before him not alone in the actual scene, but heightened by an impassioned imagination.Hanna Tachau, "Pictures and Sculptures Shown in the One Hundred and Eleventh Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts," The Book News Monthly, vol. 34, no. 8 (April 1916), p. 335.
Pearson painted a trio of full-length portraits of his wife Emily, including Study in Gray (1905). He painted a full-length portrait of his eldest daughter Ruth as a child, and at least two double portraits of his twin daughters, Virginia and Jane. The 1917 double portrait depicted the girls in identical pink dresses, flanking a sewing table and standing before a deep blue mural. The Twins: Virginia and Jane received multiple awards, and has become Pearson's most famous work.Joseph T. Pearson Jr. from Gratz Gallery.
Pearson volunteered his skills during World War I, camouflaging ships at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. He was powerfully affected by the war, and turned to religious painting late in his career.
Several PAFA instructors were invited to paint murals for the Pennsylvania Building at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Agriculture was the theme assigned to Pearson, whose lunette-shaped mural, Harvesting, was installed inside the building's north wing. It was the same size— in height and in length—as Daniel Garber's lunette mural, A Wooded Watershed, installed opposite it."The Pennsylvania Building and Its Murals," A Wooded Watershed by Daniel Garber (2017). from Michener Art Museum.
Exhibitions, awards and honors
Pearson exhibited regularly at PAFA from 1904 to 1917, and sporadically thereafter. A Group of Geese was awarded PAFA's 1910 Fellowship Prize; Landscape was awarded its 1911 Jennie Sesnan Medal;Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 2, 1876-1913, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989). On the Valley was awarded its 1916 Temple Gold Medal, along with its $1,000 Edward T. Stotesbury Prize; and The Twins: Virginia and Jane was awarded its 1917 Beck Gold Medal.Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 3, 1914-1968, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989).
He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design from 1907 to 1918.Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901-1950, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990). A Group of Geese was awarded NAD's 1911 2nd Hallgarten Prize; Landscape was awarded its 1915 George Inness Gold Medal; and Spring was awarded its 1918 Saltus Medal for Merit.
The Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh awarded him a 1911 Honorable Mention (4th place) for Ducks in a Marsh."The Carnegie Institute's Exhibition," Art and Progress, vol. 11, no. 8 (June 1911), pp. 236-237. The Art Institute of Chicago awarded him its 1915 Norman Wait Harris Silver Medal (and $500 prize) for In the Gloaming;"Annual Exhibition in Chicago," The American Magazine of Art, January 1916, p. 97. and its 1918 Potter Palmer Award (and $1,000 prize) for The Twins: Virginia and Jane. The Philadelphia Water Color Club awarded him its 1933 Joseph Pennell Medal.
Pearson's October was awarded a bronze medal at the 1910 Exposición Internacional del Centenario in Buenos Aires; Ducks in a Marsh and Fox and Geese were part of his Gold-Medal-winning exhibition at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco;Official Catalogue of the Department of Fine Arts, Panama–Pacific International Exposition, (San Francisco: The Wahlgreen Company, 1915), p. 170. and The Twins: Virginia and Jane was awarded a gold medal at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
The St. Botolph Club of Boston hosted an April 1912 joint exhibition of paintings by Pearson and animalier sculptures by Albert Laessle.Exhibition of Paintings by Mr. Joseph T. Pearson, Jr. and of Sculpture by Mr. Albert Laessle, (Boston: St. Botolph Club, April 15–26, 1912). The Woodmere Art Museum, in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, reunited the pair 31 years later, for a 1943 joint exhibition.Exhibition of Works by Albert Laessle, N. A. / Joseph T. Pearson, Jr., N. A. / Together with a Portion of the Charles K. Smith Collection, exhibition catalogue, Woodmere Art Museum, 1943. Milch Galleries in New York City hosted a 1921 group exhibition of paintings by Daniel Garber, William Langson Lathrop, Robert Spencer and Pearson.Milch Galleries, Exhibition of Paintings by Daniel Garber, W.L. Lathrop, Joseph T. Pearson, Jr., Robert Spencer; January 30 to February 12, (New York: Milch Galleries, 1921). The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. hosted a one-man exhibition of Pearson's drawings in 1937.Drawings by Joseph T. Pearson, Jr.; October 23 - November 12, 1937, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Past Exhibitions (PDF) from National Gallery of Art.
Pearson was elected an Associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1913, and an Academician in 1919.National Academicians from NAD.
Personal
On October 7, 1902, Pearson married Emily Fetter, also from Germantown. The couple moved into the house in which he had grown up, that they occupied until the end of World War I. They had seven children together: Ruth, Joseph III, Emilie, Julian, twins Virginia and Jane, and Justin.
In 1918, Pearson purchased the Silas Yerkes property along the Pennypack Creek, in Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.Michael W. Schantz and Roy Wood Jr., Joseph Thurman Pearson, Jr.: A Painter in the Grand Manner, exhibition catalogue, Woodmere Art Museum, April 8 - July 8, 2001. He restored its 1790s manor house, and converted its 1797 stone barn into a studio. "After his move to Huntingdon Valley, in 1918, Pearson reduced his artistic output, probably spending more of his time restoring and renovating the stone buildings and landscaping the property to his liking."
Emily Fetter Pearson died suddenly in 1947. Pearson married family friend and fellow artist Alice Kent Stoddard, in Thomaston, Maine, on May 28, 1948. Stoddard painted multiple portraits of Pearson, who died less than three years later.
Legacy The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts mounted a memorial exhibition of Pearson's work in early 1952.A Memorial Exhibition of Joseph T. Pearson, Jr., N.A., March 14 - April 13, 1952, (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1952).
Among Pearson's PAFA students were Ross Eugene Braught,Peter Hastings Falk, ed., Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, Volume 1: A-F, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999). William James Dow, Edith Emerson, Anne Goodell Lathrop, Arthur Meltzer,Arthur Meltzer from Michener Art Museum. and Cesare A. Ricciardi.A Collection of Paintings by William H. Singer, Jr., exhibition catalogue, City Art Museum St. Louis, January 1916, p. 50.
At the invitation of one of Pearson's grandchildren, art dealer Roy Wood Jr. visited his studio in 1996, forty-five years after the artist's death. Wood catalogued the paintings and drawings there, most of which had never been exhibited. A number of these rediscovered works became part of the Woodmere Art Museum's 2001 retrospective exhibition: Joseph Thurman Pearson, Jr.: A Painter in the Grand Manner.
Selected works
Portraits Study in Gray (1905), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, PhiladelphiaStudy in Gray from Woodmere Art Museum. Portrait of his wife, Emily Fetter Pearson. Emily (1905), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PhiladelphiaEmily from SIRIS.Emily from PAFA. Emily (1906), Woodmere Art Museum, Chestnut Hill, PhiladelphiaEmily from Woodmere Art Museum. Ruth (undated), unlocated.Ruth from SIRIS. Ex collection: Corcoran Gallery of Art. Portrait of his eldest daughter, Ruth Elizabeth Pearson Whalen. Self-Portrait (1914), National Academy of Design, New York CitySelf-Portrait from SIRIS. Presented to NAD by Pearson, May 1, 1916. The Twins: Virginia and Jane (1917), Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.The Twins: Virginia and Jane from SIRIS.The Twins: Virginia and Jane from Michener Art Museum. Awarded PAFA's 1917 Beck Gold Medal, AIC's 1918 Potter Palmer Award, and a Gold Medal at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition. The Pearson Family (1920?)
Landscapes with animals A Group of Geese (1910), unlocated. Awarded PAFA's 1910 Fellowship Prize, and NAD's 1911 2nd Hallgarten Prize. Fox and Geese (1910), National Academy of Design, New York City.Fox and Geese from SIRIS. Shared a gold medal at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. Presented to NAD by Pearson's widow, Alice Kent Stoddard, May 21, 1952. October (1910). Awarded a bronze medal at the 1910 World's Fair in Buenos Aires.