Boston artist John Wilson's work now the subject of Museum of Fine Arts exhibit celebrating humanity

CBS News

30-05-2025

A late Boston artist that got his start in the Roxbury neighborhood now has his work gracing the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts as part of a new exhibition.
Welcome to Roxbury: the geographic center of the city, the heart of Black Boston, and the birthplace of artist John Wilson.
"His life came out of that community very deeply, and it produced this—at least for me—this magnificent representation of human beings," said Roy Wilson, John's son.
Importance of family
John Wilson was born in 1922, to immigrants from British Guyana.
Although his career took him to many places, Including Europe and Mexico, family was always important to him. He went on to marry his wife Julie and they had three kids: Erica, Rebecca and Roy.
Roy Wilson invited WBZ-TV into his childhood home in Brookline.
"I just have this vision of him doing anything to protect us. And I always knew that about him - that he'd be there in the end for you - whatever it took," said Wilson.
John Wilson passed away in 2015 at the age of 92, but the memories that Wilson made with his father are still very much alive.
"Well - one thing is - he was upstairs working a lot. When I went to the show, it was kind of impressive… seeing all the stuff that he had been working on in his studio for so many years—to see it all in one place!" said Wilson.
New MFA exhibit
That place? The walls of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
One hundred and ten of his works grace the walls; paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and illustrated books—all on display in the exhibition "Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson."
"The self-portrait was an incredibly important part of John Wilson's work and throughout his six-decade career, so much of his work is focused around portraits of himself, his family, and his friends," said co-curator Edward Saywell. "And a lot of that has to do with his reclaiming, the dignity and the gravitas of the portrait for Black Americans."
Saywell, one of the four co-curators of the John Wilson exhibit, told WBZ-TV that as an art student, Wilson never got to see himself in art history books or exhibitions.
"And when he did see representations of Black Americans, all too often he described them as caricature-like or dehumanized. And one of the threads that you see throughout the entire exhibition is incredible humanity and empathy that he imbues in all his portraits—whether it's a portrait of himself or a portrait of a family member or a friend," Saywell explained.
John Wilson spent more than six decades creating artwork that challenged viewers to not just look...but see.
"The works speak to, not only key political and civil rights moments over those six decades, but they speak to what life was like in Roxbury growing up in the 1940s," Saywell said.
Works displayed in Roxbury
Long before Wilson's works were in the MFA, they were on display in the neighborhood that helped shape him. One of those works sits on the campus of Roxbury Community College, called: "Father and Child Reading." A 7-foot tall bronze sculpture that honors the fond memories John Wilson had of his father reading to him.
"Father and Child Reading," a sculpture by John Wilson.
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"I know that he was very dedicated to the idea of being a father, in acculture, that in some ways, made it difficult to be an upstanding man," said Wilson.
The other work, a very well-known piece called "The Eternal Presence", more affectionately known as "The Big Head." The monument, described by the artist himself as, "an image of universal dignity."
"For him, putting it in Roxbury was as important as the piece itself. And attaching it to the ground, no pedestal, in his home community—was as important as anything else about the piece. And the fact that people come once a year to polish it and to refinish it, was completely moving to the man. It was the highest compliment he could imagine being paid," said Saywell.
That piece sits on the campus of the museum of The National Center of Afro-American Arts.
"My sincerest hope is that any visitor is going to see an extraordinary Boston artist who should be on the national stage and are going to come away, hopefully seeing work that speaks to them in one way or another," Saywell shared.
"That we are as magical, as strong, as thoughtful, as human, as any other people on the planet," Wilson said when asked about what he wants visitors to feel leaving his father's exhibit.
John Wilson's impact is also still felt by students and staff alike at Boston University, where his inspiration and instruction as a professor continues to reverberate.
The exhibition at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will be on display through June 22 – and then it will travel to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in September.