Constance Perkins; Art Scholar, Professor

Constance M. Perkins, art professor emeritus at Occidental College and art scholar who lectured and assembled collections throughout the world for the State Department, has died in her Pasadena home. She was 77.

Her body was found Saturday in the award-winning house designed for her in 1955 by architect Richard J. Neutra. A spokesman for Occidental said Miss Perkins had a history of heart problems.

Miss Perkins, who joined Occidental in 1947, was given several research grants throughout her career, among them one by the Smithsonian Institution that resulted in sending American paintings and sculptures to Europe. She arranged similar exhibitions in the Middle East and Latin America.

Locally, she was known for her scholarship and her home in the San Rafael Hills, which she turned into a showcase of taste. It regularly was featured on home tours and abounded with paintings, sculptures and handcrafted rugs, many created by her former students. Neutra, a Vienna-born modernist, designed the 1,000-square-foot home for her after she began bringing students to his studio.

It includes indoor fish ponds that extend outdoors and bird cages placed by glass walls that offer spectacular views of nearby mountains and valleys. In 1977, six months before Neutra was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects, the Perkins House was designated Pasadena cultural heritage landmark No. 15. She has willed it to the Huntington Library, where she worked as a volunteer.

Miss Perkins retired from Occidental in 1983. There are no known survivors, a college spokesman said.