Allan Crite
Allan Crite | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 20, 1910 |
| Died | September 6, 2007 (aged 97) |
| Occupation | Artist |
Allan Rohan Crite (March 20, 1910[1] – September 6, 2007)[2] was a Boston-based African-American artist born in North Plainfield, New Jersey.
He has won several honors, such as the 350th Harvard University Anniversary Medal.[3]
Personal life
Crite's mother, Annamae, was a poet who encouraged her son to draw. He showed promise early, enrolling in the Children's Art School at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. He graduated from English High School in 1929 and won a scholarship to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts which he attended until 1936.[4]
He was accepted into Yale University but decided instead to attend Harvard University. He completed his studies through the Extension program recieving an ABE in 1968.
Crite was among the few African-Americans ever employed by the Federal Arts Project. In 1940, he began a 30-year relationship with the Boston Naval Shipyard when he took a job as an engineering draftsman.[5]
During his later years, Crite both lived and worked in the Allan Rohan Crite Research Institute at at 410 Columbus Avenue in Boston's South End.[6]
He died in his sleep at age 97.[7]
Artwork
Crite was a devout Episcopalian, and his religion inspired many of his works.[8][9]
According to one biographer, his favorite color is "all colors" and his favorite time of year is "anything but winter."[10]
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.[11] 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.
Crite explained his body of work as having a common theme:
I've only done one piece of work in my whole life and I am still at it. I wanted to paint people of color as normal humans. I tell the story of man through the black figure.
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."[13]
Crite's works hang in such major American art galleries as the Smithsonian, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Books
Among Crite's illustrated books are 1948's Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven, in which he illustrated religious stories from such African-American spirituals as Swing Low Sweet Chariot and Nobody Knows the Trouble I See.
Exhibitions
Crite's major exhibitions include 1920’s 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 and The Boston Athenaeum, 1997. [14]
