Another Light on the Hill Black Students at Tufts

John Woodrow Wilson

John Woodrow Wilson SMFA45 A47 had made a name for himself as an artist before he enrolled at Tufts in 1939
John Woodrow Wilson SMFA45 A47 painted this self-portrait while a student at the School of the Museum of the Fine Arts

John Woodrow Wilson was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1922. A son of Guyanese immigrants, Wilson showed artistic aptitude from an early age. He was the art editor for the student newspaper at Roxbury Memorial High School and took classes at the Boys Club taught by SMFA students and faculty. The faculty was so impressed by his art that they awarded Wilson a full scholarship to attend the SMFA in 1939.

Wilson was a stand-out student at the SMFA, earning high grades, additional scholarships, and having art shows at major galleries across Boston, including the Boris Mirski Gallery, and the Downtown Gallery in New York City. In 1942, he won the John Hope Purchase award from Atlanta University, the first HBCU in the South. Within the next five years, Wilson also won multiple prizes for his painting Mother and Child through a Pepsi-Cola Competition, had his work published in Life Magazine, and was one of 1500 students who received federal scholarships to continue their education in Europe; Wilson used his $3,000 to spend two years studying in Paris under Fernand Leger, a pioneer in cubism and pop art.

John Woodrow Wilson SMFA45 A47 celebrates winning a scholarship to study art in Paris with other Tufts and Jackson students, 1947

However, Wilson was more than just an art student. After he graduated from the SMFA in 1944, he enrolled at Tufts University and graduated with a Bachelors of Sciences in Education. While pursuing his degree, Wilson taught art classes through the MFA and Mirski’s art school. In the 1960s, Wilson taught art in New York City and at Boston University.

Much of Wilson’s artwork was inherently political and focused on the Black experience in post-war America. While a student at the SMFA, Wilson designed one of his most famous lithographs, Deliver Us From Evil, a meditation on the Holocaust, American racism, and the Roosevelt administration’s response to both, which is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Wilson drew particular inspiration from Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco (d. 1949). In 1950 Wilson won a John Hay Whitney Fellowship, which took him to Mexico, where he spent five years studying murals and other public art. After returning from Mexico, Wilson painted murals and produced lithographs that focused on labor unions, segregation, and white supremacy. One of those works, The Incident, a mural that dealt with a KKK attack on a Black family, was intentionally painted over but has been the subject of multiple studies and museum exhibits, most recently at the Yale University Art Gallery. Wilson’s most famous piece is the three-foot-tall bust of Martin Luther King Jr. at the United States Capitol Rotunda. The sculpture was unveiled on January 15, 1986, what would have been King’s 57th birthday.

Wilson died at age 92 in 2015 at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. His art currently is displayed at museums such as the MFA, the Met, and the Brooklyn Museum, and the Martha Richardson Fine Art Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston.


Biography written and researched by Cat Rosch.