Stump, Harold, 1905-1996

Biographical Note

Harold Stump (1905-1996)

Harold Andrew Stump was born on March 3, 1905 on a farm outside Bodega Bay, the third child of Minnie (Ruth W. Haub) and John A. Stump. After the death of her husband, Minnie Stump moved with her young children, Vera, John, and Harold, to Santa Rosa where she supported the family by giving piano lessons. Around 1922 the family moved to 50 Harrison Avenue, Sausalito, which remained the family home even after Minnie's death. Stump attended the University of California at Berkeley where he participated in student dramatic productions by constructing sets and acting. He graduated in 1926 with an A.B. in architecture. For the next four years he worked as a draftsman in the San Francisco architectural office of Kent and Haas. In 1931 he traveled to Europe to study the works of ancient and modern architects and painters, returning in 1932 to work for various architects. Upon his return, Stump studied French, mathematics, and education at UC Extension where he earned a secondary teaching credential. In 1933 he began teaching at Fremont Union High School in Sunnyvale; during the summers he worked as a draftsman in the office of William Wilson Wurster.

In 1939 Harold was appointed a lecturer in architecture at UC Berkeley. In 1941 he enrolled in the master of arts program in art and French at Mills College. There he was appointed assistant to the French abstract painter Fernand Leger, acting as his interpreter for the summer program. He entered the academic ladder at UC Berkeley as an instructor in 1942, rising through the ranks and reaching that of professor in 1968. In 1969, as a Fulbright scholar, he taught at the Black Sea Technical University in Trabzon, Turkey, and later conducted seminars at the American University of Beirut. In 1972 he joined the ranks of professors emeriti. After his retirement he taught again at the American University at Beirut. The eruption of civil disorder in Lebanon at the close of 1976 ended his teaching career.

Interested in aesthetics, art, and architecture, Stump began a research program in 1944 on the interrelation of painting, sculpture, and building by initiating correspondence with painters Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Lazlo Moholy Nagy, and Amedee Ozenfant, and architects Eric Mendelsohn, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others. Though Stump neither summarized the data he had gathered nor published his conclusions, the research enriched his teaching.

Stump traveled extensively during summers and on sabbatical leaves, visiting Mexico, Central America, Europe, Russia, Northern Africa, Ethiopia, Greece, Turkey, and the Near East. Throughout his travels, Stump photo-documented thousands of western European, African, and Near Eastern architectural monuments, ancient and modern.

Stump died of Alzheimer's disease on September 7, 1996.

Sources: "Harold A. Stump, Architecture: Berkeley." 1996, University of California: In Memoriam. (viewed 28 May, 2003 at http://dynaweb.oac.cdlib.org:8088/dynaweb/uchist/public/inmemoriam/inmemoriam1996/3489#X)

From the guide to the Harold Stump papers, 1922-1997, (Environmental Design Archives. College of Environmental Design.)