page_title: Theodore Wells Pietsch II
section_title: Studebaker-Packard—the End in Sight, and Industrial Design: 1955–1962
hierarchical_section_title: Theodore Wells Pietsch II / Studebaker-Packard—the End in Sight, and Industrial Design: 1955–1962
caption_attribution_description: English: The original drawing has been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but the image posted here was made by me, T. W. Pietsch III. Please see the correspondence below from Jennifer C. Riley, Head of Image Licensing and Digital Archives Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. You may tell them that while the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston owns the artwork; we do not retain the copyright to Theodore Wells Pietsch II’s images. Best, Jennifer Jennifer Riley Head of Image Licensing and Digital Archives Museum of Fine Arts, Boston jriley@mfa.org | 617-369-3777 http://www.mfa.org/collections/mfa-images Dear Mr. Pietsch, Regarding copyright, you retain copyright to any photos you took of the drawings made by your father. The copyright to the artworks and photographs does not revert to the Museum automatically upon donation of the works. The copyright to the photographs that you took stays with you so you have every right to upload those photos to Wikipedia. I am happy to provide you with language necessary for you to pass on to Wikipedia so you can reload the images. Since the Museum does not, in fact, hold the copyright to those photos, we cannot upload them. Best, Jennifer Jennifer Riley Head of Image Licensing and Digital Archives Museum of Fine Arts, Boston jriley@mfa.org | 617-369-3777 http://www.mfa.org/collections/mfa-images
context_page_description: Theodore Wells Pietsch II was an American automobile stylist and industrial designer who, with little formal education, managed to launch a career in automobile design that took him over a period of 38 years to nearly every major automobile company in the nation.
context_section_description: It was now mid-1955, Studebaker had fully merged with Packard, and Loewy and his team of designers were gone—both moves described by Pietsch as "desperate clutching at straws by a dying company." New titles were passed out and Pietsch was named "Manager Studebaker President Exterior Studio," and a year later (1956), "Assistant Head Truck Exterior Studio," in charge of two designers and a clay modeler, assigning and supervising their work in the absence of the studio head, and acting as a liaison between the styling and engineering departments. But despite reorganization and new faces, Studebaker-Packard remained in deep trouble. In 1958, the situation was so dire that Pietsch and a number of his fellow designers were laid off. Now, for the first time in his career, Pietsch was unable to immediately step into another automotive design job. After several months looking for work in the South Bend area, he went to Chicago, where he was soon offered a position by the industrial design firm of Dave Chapman, Incorporated. Commuting weekly by train between South Bend and Chicago, he was responsible for the account of a department of Montgomery Ward and Company, which included, among other things, the design of water heaters, water softeners, water pumps, furnaces, air-conditioners, incinerators, and ventilating fans. He also did considerable work on the design of boats, outboard motors, and radios.
  Unhappy with the work in Chicago, Pietsch returned to South Bend where he found employment for a few months with another small industrial design firm called Good Design Associates, but then, in late 1959, he got back to cars—this time, with American Motors in Detroit, a job he held for only about a year, quitting abruptly when he was suddenly called back to Studebaker. Randal D. Faurot, newly appointed head of styling, called on Pietsch to help rebuild the department, offering him a position as his assistant that he couldn't refuse. In June 1962, however, frustrated and angry over management's abrupt decision to cancel a project that he had worked for many months—the design for an all-new version of the Studebaker Lark for 1962—Pietsch lost his temper and was fired. It was a tumultuous and abrupt ending to a frustrating, decade-long struggle at Studebaker.
caption: Neoclassic Speedster by T. W. Pietsch, 1968
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2848", "Image ImageLength": "1050", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:08:03 12:47:43", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "390", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3177", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2848", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1050"}