Allan Crite

Allan Rohan Crite (March 20, 1910 – September 6, 2007) was a Boston-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, on March 20, 1910. The family relocated to Massachusetts and from the age of one until his death Crite lived in 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 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, he chose to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and graduated in 1936. He was a draughtsman and illustrator in the Design Department of the Charlestown Navy Yard from 1941 until 1974.

Recognition came early as well. His work was first shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1936 The Athenaeum exhibited a retrospective posthumously from October 2025 until January 2026 at the Boston Athenaeum.

Crite then attended Harvard Extension School, where he earned an ALB degree in 1968.

Crite was among the few African-Americans employed by the Federal Art Project. In 1940, he took a job as an engineering draftsman with the Boston Naval Shipyard where he worked as an artist for 30 years.

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.

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. 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: 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) Is It Nothing to You? (1948), (Boston, Massachusetts: Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts) Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven (1948), in which he illustrated religious stories from such African-American spirituals as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen"

Exhibitions Crite's major exhibitions included: 2025 Boston Athenæum 2025 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

His works were shown in a coordinated series of posthumous exhibitions in 2007–08, at the Boston Public Library, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.