[1] Born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Pierson trained as a high-school student with landscape painter Charles Warren Eaton.
Pierson joined the United States Navy the day after Pearl Harbor, working for the secret radio program.
With Faison and their colleague Whitney Stoddard, Pierson worked continuously to turn Williams students towards careers in art history rather than law and finance.
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.
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.