Allan Rohan Crite

Allan Rohan Crite (North Plainfield,New Jersey, 1910 - Boston 2007) African-American of African, Indian, and European ancestry, Harlem Renaissance painter. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Harvard University Extension School.

Major American art galleries, including the Smithsonian, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute in Chicago, hold Crite's work, but his art is also spread throughout the South End. ^[1]

Crite as a devout Episcopalian, focused many of his paintings on religious themes. In 1946, he painted "Madonna of the Subway" in which a black Virgin Mary and baby Jesus ride the Boston Orange Line. Crite also created books in which he illustrated religious stories from black spirituals including "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord", "Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven", "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", "Heaven" and "Nobody knows the trouble I see".

"The figures in Crite’s work are individualized in appearance and clothing. An emphasis on fine detail is in part a manifestation of Crite’s ongoing study of the detailed paintings found in Flemish Late Gothic art. Variations in brushwork, along with rich colors, animate the surface of Crite’s paintings." ^[2]

“

I'm a storyteller, telling a story of people, and I started out with my own people in the immediate sense, like the neighborhood, and people in a general sense when I make a neighborhood out of the whole world.

”