The Museum of Fine Arts, or MFA, presented a timely and powerful retrospective honoring John Wilson, a local art legend and alum of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, or SMFA, at Tufts University.
Co-organized by the MFA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition spans 110 pieces across the Torf Gallery, showcasing Wilson’s prolific 60-year career. Though beloved in Boston for his exploration of themes of racial injustice, resilience and humanity, his works received little widespread recognition during his lifetime.
“It’s painful but not surprising that this wonderful person’s work has not been well exposed to the general public,” said local landscape painter Nancy Sabelski. A former student of both SMFA and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Sabelski said she did not learn of Wilson until after graduating.
Born in Roxbury in 1922, Wilson lived in Brookline with his family while working as a professor of fine art at Boston University. His art intimately depicts family, friends and community through precise figurative drawings. At the heart of each piece lies his unwavering commitment to honoring the Black experience, dignifying and centering familial love amid racial and economic struggle.
“He really does a good job handling the tough conversations,” said Taylor Pierre, a fourth-year criminal justice student at Roger Williams University. “He brings to light that fear, those experiences of anyone of color during these times with his use of contrast — he finds a beauty in the darker moments.”

One of the exhibit’s most haunting features is a collection of preliminary sketches for “The Incident,” painted in 1952. Though the mural is lost, stark watercolors and archival photos convey the horrors and painful history of lynchings during the Jim Crow era.
“I see a lot of this print quality in his paintings and statues,” said Briana Chen, an undergraduate student at SMFA. “The evolution and diversity within his styles and materiality go a long way and show this devotion to so many communities.” Chen, who specializes in printmaking, carried a sketchbook where she noted her observations while touring the exhibit.
Wilson’s career took him from Boston to Paris and Mexico. From 1947 to 1949, he studied under Cubist French painter Fernand Léger, absorbing abstract techniques shaped by the violence and collective trauma of World War II. While working as a printmaker at the Taller de Gráfica Popular in Mexico in 1951, Wilson drew inspiration from the art of the Olmec, an early indigenous civilization. This exposure to international influences deeply informed his later work, including his widely beloved “Eternal Presence.”
Affectionately known as “Bighead” by Boston residents, the seven-foot bronze sculpture was crafted to affirm and uplift Black identity and the local community. Featured in the exhibit’s short film “Encounters with Eternal Presence,” the work proudly resides on the grounds of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Roxbury.

“He’s a masterful printmaker, sculptor, painter,” Sabelski said. “It’s very Renaissance in its breadth — he took the determination to create imagery that honored the working class and explored the prevalence and trauma of white violence by transforming those experiences, developing them at every step of the way.”
The final room of the exhibit is devoted to Wilson’s tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His “Martin Luther King Jr.” (1985) bust became the first sculpture of an African American displayed in the U.S. Capitol. The exhibition includes a series of technical studies and sketches that reveal Wilson’s painstaking efforts to capture King’s likeness and legacy.
Find tickets for “Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson” online through June 22, included with general admission.