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Permanent Collection Works of Henry Pearson & Friends — Kinston-born Henry Pearson (October 8, 1914 – December 3, 2006) was an acclaimed abstract and modernist painter who graduated from the University of North Carolina and studied theatrical design at Yale University. During WWII, he became interested in Japanese art and theatre forms and designed maps for the US Army Air Corps. In the early 1950s, Pearson moved to New York and studied Reginald Marsh and Will Barnet, who were students of the Art Students League of New York. Pearson was loosely associated with the Op Art movement. His collections may be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Along with his art, Pearson taught at the New School for General Studies and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was interested in literature and illustrated several poems by the Irish Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. Much of his correspondence and other associated memorabilia may be found at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.