GUEST: I was in college when I bought it in 1956. I'm from Chicago. And I believe the artist was in town at the time.
APPRAISER: He was, yeah. John Wilson was in Chicago in 1956. He's a wonderful artist, and this is just a fantastic example of his masterful printmaking. He is from Boston, born in 1922. Studied at the MFA in Boston, had prestigious Hay Whitney Scholarship, studied with Fernand Lèger in Paris.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: And in the '50s, at the time this was made, he was studying in Mexico with printmakers at the Taller de Gráfica Popular. He did many images of African-American families, were very important to him as an African-American artist. So this is a wonderful example, and he really beautifully depicts a mother and child. This is related to a painting he did where the mother is hiding from an attack from the Ku Klux Klan, they could see out the window.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: It's a terrible image, but he picked really the most poignant part of the picture, this intimacy, this, this moment of a mother protecting her child for this beautiful lithograph. "Mother and Child" is an edition of 54. You can see how it printed in 1956. He actually did two versions of this print-- one in 1952 and one in 1956. And for some reason, the 1956 version that you have is much scarcer.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: This print, at auction, sells between $7,000 and $10,000.
GUEST: Well, I'm not selling it. (both laughing)
