A Collection in The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Accession number MS 1945.4
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library Colonial Williamsburg Foundation P.O. Box 1776 Williamsburg, Virginia 23187 USA Phone: (757) 565-8520 Fax: (757) 565-8528 Email: speccoll@cwf.org URL: http://www.history.org
Before publishing quotations or excerpts from any materials, permisson must be obtained from the Special Collections Librarian,
and the holder of the copyright, if not the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg.
Preferred Citation
Thomas Mott Shaw drawings, Accession # MS 1945.4, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Thomas Mott Shaw is best known as one of the founding partners and principal architects of the prominent Boston architectural
firm Perry, Shaw and Hepburn which designed, planned and supervised the restoration of Williamsburg, Virginia. Born in 1878
in Newport, Rhode Island, Shaw received a Bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1900 and continued his education at the atelier
of Jean-Louis Pascal at the ècole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1900 to 1905. He began his career in Boston, working for the
architect Guy Lowell before opening his own business. Shaw served with the United States Army in France during World War I.
Following the war, Shaw partnered with fellow architect Andrew H. Hepburn. William Graves Perry joined the firm in 1923 and
it was this firm which was hired to restore Williamsburg to its 18th century appearance.
This collection consists of thirty-four graphite and mixed media sketches drawn by architect Thomas Mott Shaw during the restoration
of Williamsburg from the late 1920s through 1938, depicting various architectural exteriors and interiors of historic buildings
in and around Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area. Two of the sketches depict African Americans involved in the work of
the restoration. It is not known why these sketches were created whether for inhouse use or external purposes by Perry Shaw
and Hepburn, for Colonial Williamsburg's staff or other interested parties, or perhaps even for Shaw's own personal use.
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