Campesinos (Peasants)

Gallery 204, American Art, second floor (Sherrerd Gallery)

Main Building

Campesinos (Peasants)

1952

John Wilson (American, 1922–2015)

African American artist John Woodrow Wilson was inspired by the work of Mexican modernists after seeing a 1942 group exhibition at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum. He realized his dream of seeing the public murals of José Clemente Orozco (1883 - 1949), David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 - 1974), and Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957) firsthand eight years later, when a John Hay Whitney Fellowship funded a trip to Mexico—where he would live for the next five years. Campesinos depicts a peasant family sitting on a third-class bus, and reveals the close connection that Wilson felt to the poor indigenous people of this country.

Gallery 204, American Art, second floor (Sherrerd Gallery)

Object Details

Title:

Campesinos (Peasants)

Date:

1952

Artist:

John Wilson (American, 1922–2015)

Medium:

Duco on Masonite

Dimensions:

23 1/2 x 30 inches (59.7 x 76.2 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

Credit Line:

Purchased with funds contributed by Marion Boulton Stroud, 2005

Accession Number:

2005-42-1

Geography:

Made in Mexico, North and Central America

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Gallery 204, American Art, second floor (Sherrerd Gallery)

Main Building

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