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William Flannery

art director (1898-1959)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ2578830 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Edward Flannery (November 17, 1898 – January 25, 1959) was an American art director and architect for William Randolph Hearst. He won an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Picnic.

As an architect, his projects included a beachside mansion for Hearst's girlfriend Marion Davies. The main mansion was demolished, but part of the property survives as the Annenberg Community Beach House.

Flannery married silent film actress Mary Mercedes Campbell and they had a son Patrick John, born in 1927. During the Great Depression he became an art director.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Flannery” is art director (1898-1959). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Flannery and director, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1898, 1959, 1927—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1898-11-17. For this dossier, William, Flannery and director is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “art director (1898-1959)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2578830. VIAF identifies the subject as 314791081. The Library of Congress control number is no90016833. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1959 and 1927.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Flannery”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Flannery primary sources, William Flannery archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Flannery”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Flannery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.