Walk through the first floor of the Americas wing in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and you will be greeted by some of America’s first leaders. Paul Revere is inspecting a teapot. John Hancock poses with a quill pen in hand. George Washington stands before his horse at Dorchester Heights. But for Northeastern University professor Ted Landsmark, another face beckons: the face of an African American man directing a crew of white sailors as they rescue a comrade from a shark attack. “He’s the person in charge,” Landsmark said, looking at John Singleton Copley’s 1778 painting “Watson and the Shark” during a recent visit to the museum.
Landsmark explained that there are few early images of African Americans and people of color in heroic, rather than subservient, positions. And although the title character, “Watson,” is the victim in the water, it is the African American man who is at the center of the painting. The painting, which depicts an actual event, has captivated Landsmark since he and his mother visited the museum when he was a child during trips from their home in Harlem, New York.
