For Deborah Ramirez, the wife of the late Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants, her husband had an inner compass that was “pointed toward true north.”

“Though he sometimes got lost in the swamps, chasms, and deserts along the way, like all of us, his journey had one purpose, one destination, justice, and he was determined to get there,” Ramirez said Wednesday inside the John Adams Courthouse.

Judges, lawyers, lawmakers, and others gathered at the courthouse for the unveiling of a portrait of Gants that will hang inside the building. Gants died in 2020 at 65 from a heart attack and his death sent shockwaves through the Massachusetts legal community.

Roger Michel, the executive director of the Institute for Digital Archaeology, funded portrait’s creation.

“This painting offers up Chief Justice Gants as an example of who we are and what we value to generations of lawyers who will never know us,” Michel said.

Gants became chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court in 2014 and was sworn in by then-Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat. He was appointed as an associate justice on the court five years before that and had served for more than 11 years as an associate justice in the Superior Court.

Former Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Roderick Ireland said Gants was a “visionary and an advocate for justice.”

“Ralph Gants combined public service and professional accomplishment at the highest level, in ways that have been of great importance to the state of Massachusetts, and the world at large. Not only was he a student of the law, but also of humanity,” Ireland said. “And one of his virtues was that he never took himself too seriously. He always understood that his work was important, not himself.”

Gov. Maura Healey, a former attorney general and lawyer, said she was struck by Gants’ “deep and demonstrated conviction around the need to ensure access to justice.”

“In so many ways, Chief Justice Gants made the law and our courts more humane and more just. And as we know, as Massachusetts goes, so eventually goes to the rest of the country, starting back with that John Adams fellow. So his work will continue to make our state, our country, and our world a better place for years to come,” she said.