Experience the Art of John Wilson at MFA Boston

 

My Brother

 

 

Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson

Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

Through June 22, 2025

 

There is a small portrait at the Smith College Museum of Arts that has long captivated me. It’s titled “My Brother,” a young man named Frederick, whose older sibling was John Wilson (1922-2015). I show it here but if you live in Western Massachusetts and can see it later this summer at Smith, do so. As you can see, the MFA lighting puts a lot of sheen on the painting, a constant problem for museum portraits of black people.

 

 

"Nefertiti"

 

That said, get yourself to Boston in the next month to see Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson. Wilson spent much of his life in the Roxbury section of Boston depicting black street life, social issues, his family, and self-portraits. As is the case with most black artists, he fixated upon racism, prejudice, and injustices, though his primary goal was always to show–as the title of the MFA show suggests–the humanity of African Americans and the dignity of their everyday lives. 

 

"Streetcar Scene." This man is on his way to work at the Navy yard.

 

The MFA show is the largest show yet of Wilson’s work. That’s not to say this is a huge exhibition. Wilson is at long last getting his due as major artist. The MFA spotlights paintings, drawings, book illustrations, and sculptures from his 60 years of making art. Only now is Wilson being considered in the same breath as better known black artists such as Romare Beardon and Jacob Lawrence.

 

John Wilson was born in Roxbury but his parents were from what was then the colony of British Guiana (now Guyana). They lived a middle-class existence there, as two generations of Wilsons managed sugar refineries. They immigrated to Boston shortly before John was born.

 

John Wilson had intriguing influences before finding his own style. He studied with surrealist Fernand Léger in Paris and he also developed a deep admiration for the works of Mexican muralist José Orozco. It’s always interesting to see how artists channeled their influences for a time and then gave nods to them in more subtle ways. 

 

Leger influences

 

 

Wilson, not Leger

"Worker" Note Orozco influences

 

Given the intractable problems of race in the United States, though, it comes as no surprise that Wilson used his brushes, pens, and chisels to comment upon what, in 1944, Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal dubbed “an American dilemma.” In the 1940s, Wilson contributed illustrations dealing with racism for the leftist publication New Masses, a communist art and political journal. Please note that, at the time, the Communist Party USA was a legal political party that drew tens of thousands of voters during the Great Depression and World War II when the Soviet Union and the USA were allies. From what we can determine, Wilson’s politics settled into more of a socialist democratic position. 

 

"Study for Lynching, 1946"

 

Black Despair 1946

"The Incident" 1952

 

Racism was all the more personal for Wilson given his marriage to white Bronx College graduate Julie Kowtich in 1951. Suffice it to say that Boston wasn’t the most welcoming city for an interracial couple with biracial children in the 1950s, 60s, and beyond. They often had to drive in separate cars and decamped to Mexico for five years to make art and gain a reprieve from discrimination. Wilson painted his children from time to time and these are some of the more touching works in the show. 

 

Julie and Erica"

 

MLK (maquette)

Wilson lived to the ripe old age of 93. This means he got to see the flowering of the civil rights movement. His statue of Martin Luther King Jr. graces the U.S. Capitol and a maquette of that work is in the exhibit. Perhaps the best way of thinking of Wilson as a black artist is the show’s largest work, a sculpture often jocularly called “Big Head.” Wilson had a better name that bespeaks the fact that African Americans have endured and aren’t going away: “Eternal Presence.”

 

"Eternal Presence"

 

 

Rob Weir