Fil Hearn, director of the Architectural Studies program for 25 years, died on Oct. 31, 2024, at 86.
Professor Emerita M. Alison Stones, Hearn’s colleague in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, first met him when they were both students on a trip to Paris, recalling with fondness their “congenial and collegial interaction over the years. Fil's work in architecture and sculpture in England and France resulted in important publications and his guidance of hands-on experience with Semester at Sea were highpoints for his Pitt students.”
On campus, Stones said, “he was a key player in the Architectural Studies program, which he master-minded with colleague Frank Toker, that offered specialized opportunities for Art History majors.”
Another former colleague, David Wilkins, joined the department with Hearn in 1967. “We increased the number of art historians to five,” he said. “Within a few years the department experienced exciting growth and the faculty numbered about a dozen. We were perhaps the first History of Art department in the country where the faculty was split about half and half between men and women, the result of our concerted effort to hire the very best young scholars.
“Fil and I taught Introduction to Art together that first year and also a seminar on the International Gothic Style,” Wilkins continued. “Like most of the faculty in those early years, Fil had a remarkable breadth of knowledge; eventually he published books on Romanesque Sculpture and Gothic Architecture, but his most important work examined the history of the very idea of architecture,” in an award-winning 2003 book titled “Ideas That Shaped Buildings.”
“When he envisioned and developed a new major in Architectural Studies that encompassed history, design and urban planning, he provided an important new opportunity for Pitt undergraduate students.
“Fil appreciated the educational component available in travel, and he led the Mellon Summer Seminar across Romanesque Europe, taught on Pitt’s short-lived London program, and was a popular academic dean on three voyages of Semester at Sea.”
Remembering their collaborations, Wilkins added: “When Fil and I taught together, the diversity of our backgrounds, mine in Italian art and his in British and French art, meant we always had new examples to enrich our class presentations and discussion. His experience studying at Berkeley encouraged him to emphasize function and patronage in our classes, and those emphases have continued to inform my work even today. It was always clear that he held his students to the highest standards.”
Millard Fillmore Hearn Jr. was born Aug. 18, 1938 in Lincoln, Ala. He earned bachelor's degrees in history and English at Auburn University, and then served as an active-duty officer in the U.S. Navy aboard an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S Kitty Hawk, as lieutenant junior grade, where he managed the shipboard television station and was named the Poet Laureate of the Atlantic Fleet.
Hearn earned two M.A. degrees, in European History and Art History, and a Ph.D. in Art History at Indiana University, then studied at the University of California–Berkeley and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
His focus on architectural theory and history resulted in many published articles and four books, which included “Romanesque Sculpture,” 1981; “Ripon Minster and the Beginning of the Gothic Style in Northern England,” 1983; and “The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc,” 1990.
Hearn was also teacher and advisor to many generations of students across his 39 years at Pitt, briefly chairing the Fine Arts Department before heading the Architectural Studies program.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Jana; children John Hearn (Nicole) and Susannah Kerest (Nikolas); grandchildren Hudson Hearn, Vivian Hearn, Helena Kerest and Lewis Kerest; and sister Mary Emma Bunch (Michael).
Memorial gifts are suggested to the Hearn Endowed Scholarship for students in the University’s Architectural History Program, or to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
— Marty Levine