W. Hawkins Ferry was born into a distinguished Detroit family in 1913. His grandfather, Dexter Mason Ferry, was a founder of D. M. Ferry and Company, and his father, Dexter M. Ferry Jr., was head of the company when it merged to become the Ferry-Morse Seed Company. Educated at the University Liggett School, at Cranbrook, and at Harvard University, he pursued graduate studies at the Harvard School of Design, worked as an architectural designer, and served as an instructor in art and architectural history at Wayne State University.
Ferry was an important collector of contemporary art and a patron of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which his grandfather helped to found. He was the honorary curator of architecture, chairman of the Friends of Modern Art, and a trustee of the Founders Society at the Detroit Institute of Arts; as well as an honorary member of the Michigan Society of Architects. He died in 1988 and left his art collection to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
