Pearson was born in Yorkshire and studied at the Harrogate School of Art, Yorkshire (National Diploma of Design, 1960), the Royal Academy Schools, London (Certificate, R.A.S 1963), the Akademie der Bildende Kunst, Munich (1963–64, research fellow), and Northern Illinois University (M.F.A. 1966). Before arriving to teach at Oberlin in 1972, he taught at the University of New Mexico, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and the Cleveland Institute of Art. He is currently the Young-Hunter Professor of Art at Oberlin College and lives in Oberlin with his wife, the artist Audra Skuodas.

Pearson’s early style reflects the European reaction to expressionism and artistic emotionalism in the form of a rational, systematic approach to art (often called the “New Tendency”). An heir to the tenets of Constructivism, he investigated color within a pre-determined linear or grid system that eliminated options after the artist’s initial choices, thus also deferring any aesthetic judgment of the piece until it was finished.