Allan Rohan Crite (March 20, 1910 – September 6, 2007) was a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based African American artist. He won several honors, such as the 350th Harvard University Anniversary Medal.

Biography

Crite was born in

North Plainfield, New Jersey North Plainfield is a borough in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. It is located within the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 21,936,Boston's South End. Crite's mother, Annamae, was a poet who encouraged her son to draw. Showing promise at a young age, he enrolled in the Children's Art Centre at

United South End Settlements The United South End Settlements (USES) consist of four settlement houses, founded as part of the Settlement movement to provide services such as daycare, education, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor, and a children's museum dating b ...

in Boston and graduated from the English High School in 1929. His father, Oscar William Crite, was a doctor and engineer, one of the first black people to earn an engineering license. Though he was admitted to the

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

, he chose to attend the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachus ...

in Boston and graduated in 1936. Recognition came early as well. His work was first shown at New York's

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in 1936. Crite then attended

Harvard Extension School Harvard Extension School (HES) is the extension school of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school is one among 12 schools that grant degrees and falls under the Division of Continuing Education in the Harvard Faculty of Arts ...

, where he earned a BA degree in 1968. Crite was among the few African-Americans employed by the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...

. In 1940, he took a job as a engineering

draftsman A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for m ...

with the

Boston Naval Shipyard The Boston Navy Yard, originally called the Charlestown Navy Yard and later Boston Naval Shipyard, was one of the oldest shipbuilding facilities in the United States Navy. It was established in 1801 as part of the recent establishment of t ...

; it supported his work as an artist for 30 years. He later worked part time as a librarian at Harvard University's

Grossman Library Grossman Library, located at its closure on the third floor of Sever Hall in Harvard Yard, was the Harvard Extension School's primary library. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences ...

. In 1986, Boston named the intersection of Columbus Avenue and West Canton Street, steps from his home, Allan Rohan Crite Square. In 1993, Crite married Jackie Cox-Crite. Together they established the Crite House Museum in their home at 410 Columbus Avenue in Boston's South End.

Suffolk University Suffolk University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. With 7,560 students (includes all campuses, 7,379 at the Boston location alone), it is the eighth-largest university in metropolitan Boston. It was founded as a l ...

awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979. He died in his sleep of natural causes on September 6, 2007, at age 97. His widow established the Allan Rohan Crite Research Institute to safeguard his legacy, which Crite never thought important, by authenticating and cataloging his many scattered works.

Artwork

Crite hoped to depict the life of African-Americans living in Boston in a new and different way: as ordinary citizens or the "middle class" rather than stereotypical jazz musicians or sharecroppers. Through his art, he intended to tell the story of African Americans as part of the fabric of American society and its reality. By using representational style rather than modernism, Crite felt that he could more adequately "report" and capture the reality that African Americans were part of but often unaccounted for. Crite explained his body of work as having a common theme: His paintings fall into two categories: religious themes and general African-American experiences, with some reviewers adding a third category for work depicting

Negro spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the e ...

. Spirituals, he believed, expressed a certain humanity. Crite was a devout

Episcopalian Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...

, and his religion inspired many of his works. His 1946 painting ''Madonna of the Subway'' is an example of a blend of genres, depicting a Black Holy Mother and baby Jesus riding Boston's Orange Line. Other pieces such as ''School's Out'' (1936) reflect on the themes of community, family, society. On his faith and the role of liturgy in his pieces, Crite said in an interview: His work is recognizable in its use of rich earth tone colors. According to one biographer, his favorite color was "all colors" and his favorite time of year was "anything but winter." According to one reviewer, "Crite's oils and graphics, even when restricted to black and white, are bright in tonality, fine and varied in line, extremely rhythmic, dramatic in movement, and often patterned." Crite's works hang in more than a hundred American institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

and Washington’s

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin, ...

. The

Boston Athenaeum Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

holds the largest public collection of his paintings and watercolors, a bequest from Crite in gratitude for his long tenure there as a visiting artist.

Books

Crite's illustrated books include: *''Were You There When They Crucified My Lord. A Negro Spiritual in Illustrations'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1944) *''All Glory: Brush Drawing Meditations On The Prayer Of Consecration'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Society of Saint John the Evangelist, 1947) *''Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven'' (1948), in which he illustrated religious stories from such African-American

spirituals Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, African American spirituals, Black spirituals, or spiritual music) is a genre of Christian music that is associated with Black Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the e ...

as "

Swing Low Sweet Chariot "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is an Spiritual (music), African-American spiritual song and one of the best-known Christian hymns. Originating in early oral and musical African-American traditions, the date it was composed is unknown. Performances by ...

" and "

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" is an African-American spiritual song that originated during the period of slavery but was not published until 1867. The song is well known and many cover versions of it have been done by artists such as Mar ...

Exhibitions

Crite's major exhibitions included: *1920s Harmon Foundation Exhibitions *1930s Museum of Modern Art, New York *1936 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. *1939 Boston Museum of Fine Arts *1978 the Boston Athenaeum *1999

Frye Art Museum The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary ex ...

, Seattle His works were shown in a coordinated series of posthumous exhibitions in 2007-08, at the

Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonweal ...

, the

, and the Museum of the

National Center of Afro-American Artists The National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) is a center in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts founded in 1968 by Elma Lewis to "preserv and foster the cultural arts heritage of black peoples worldwide through arts teaching, and the presentat ...

Notes

External links

"School's Out"
at

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Allan Rohan Crite papers
at th
African American Museum in Philadelphia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crite, Allan 1910 births 2007 deaths Harvard Extension School alumni 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters People from North Plainfield, New Jersey Artists from Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni African-American Episcopalians Painters from New Jersey English High School of Boston alumni People from South End, Boston Federal Art Project artists 20th-century American Episcopalians 20th-century African-American painters 21st-century African-American artists 20th-century American male artists