John Albert Wilson (1877 – December 8, 1954) was a Canadian sculptor who produced public art for commissions throughout North America.

Renowned sculptor and art historian Lorado Taft wrote of the latter work, "No American sculpture, however, has surpassed the compelling power which John A. Wilson put into his steady, motionless 'Pennsylvania Volunteer'.

"[2] He was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia (Potter's Brook), son of John and Annie (Cameron) Wilson.

[9] In 1917, Wilson started to teach at Harvard University when the scholarly Abbott Lawrence Lowell was president.

Wilson taught for 5 years at the Worcester Art Museum (1917–22), where he would complete the Hector Monument (1923) with his student Evangeline Eells Wheeler.

The year after Wilson graduated from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1905), he received his first major recognition when he was commissioned by the State of Pennsylvania to make the Washington Grays Monument in Philadelphia to the men who served in the American Civil War.

The commemorative monument on its grounds, was erected to honor Massachusetts sailors and soldiers who died in Civil War battles in the Gulf region.

The granite monument is inscribed with the names of the Infantries and Light Batteries that served in the Gulf theater of operations.

The statue of Daniel Bean stands in Brownfield, Maine, where the roads to Hiram and Denmark diverge.

Of all the Civil War memorials erected by Maine towns, this remarkable monument was the only one cast in the image of a real person.

Although this statue, unlike that of Bean, is armed, it has been described as "silent" because the soldier has no cartridge box on his belt so he cannot fire his gun.

[19] Each year on the second Sunday in June, memorial services sponsored by the Charitable Association of the Boston Fire Department are held at the Firemen's Memorial at Forest Hills Cemetery in order to pay tribute to deceased members so they would be assured of a decent and final resting place and they would not necessarily end up in Pauper's Field.

[21] Wilson also made two busts of William Crowninshield Endicott, one in the Fogg Museum and the other in Harvard University Law School (1932).

[24] One of Wilson's most famous Harvard graduates was sculptor Wheeler Williams who wrote to him, The Nova Scotia monuments were made in the same year (1923).

The sculpture representing Great Britain in South Africa during the Boer War and was noted as being "an admirable piece of modelling from one of his age".

[28] In March 1902 the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts accepted this lion for its annual exhibition in Montreal.