Allan rohan crite biography templates

Crite was primarily a painter, but also worked in printmaking and wrote and illustrated books. Most of Crite's early artwork in the s and s depicted everyday street scenes of African Americans in Boston. Crite was also a devout Episcopalian. From the s onward much of his work was religious in nature, depicting African Americans in religious scenes, something which went against the stereotype of African Americans in art at the time.

Crite gave many lectures on religious art during the s and s, and also created the Artists' Collective, a group for up and coming African American artists in Boston. The Archives of the Episcopal Church. Online exhibition. He was accepted at Yale but instead went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and graduated in Later in life he would also be awarded honorary doctorates from Suffolk University, Emmanuel University, and Massachusetts College of Art.

Crite spent a year working for the WPA before taking a job as an engineering draftsman at the Boston Naval Shipyard in , a job he would continue to hold for 30 years.

Allan rohan crite biography templates

His productions were largely in pen and ink and lithography. Crite, a devout Episcopalian, views his religious themes from a contemporary perspective. His illustrations are nationally known, and he is the author of three books, Were You There? Crite has painted murals and Stations of the Cross in various parishes in several states, and has also designed private devotional works such as the Creed, Stations of the Cross, and parish bulletins that are furnished to churches in the United States and Mexico.

In Crite began a series of brush-and-ink drawings depicting three spirituals. In Crite's highly individualistic approach he translated the text of the spirituals from a musical context to a visual one. The general theme treats the transition of man from the earthly sphere of his activities to his ultimate destination in heaven. During the time when many spirituals were conceived most African Americans were unable to read.

Spirituals formed an oral tradition through which the lessons of the Bible were passed from generation to generation. The hymns are of two types, narrative and contemplative; narrative hymns tell stories from the Biblewhile contemplative hymns deal with lessons and ethical implications of the Bible in daily life. The three hymns in Crite's illustrations are contemplative in nature.

A human figure is used as the motif or melody figure in the first two hymns, and in the last spiritual the motif figures are first robes, then harps, and finally wings. The motif figures represent the melody, and the background represents the accompaniment. Small drawings on the left-hand pages of the book echo the character of the large illustrations and act as connecting links from phrase to phrase as the hymn progresses.

Crite's mother, Annamae, was a poet who encouraged her son to draw. His father, Oscar William Crite, was a doctor and engineer, one of the first black people to earn an engineering license. Recognition came early as well. In , he took a job as an engineering draftsman with the Boston Naval Shipyard ; it supported his work as an artist for 30 years.

In , Crite married Jackie Cox-Crite. Suffolk University awarded him an honorary doctorate in He died in his sleep of natural causes on September 6, , at age 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.

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" [ 3 ] rather than stereotypical jazz musicians or sharecroppers. Crite explained his body of work as having a common theme: [ 8 ]. 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. 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. Other pieces such as School's Out reflect on the themes of community, family, society. It was very useful, because it gave me a framework of discipline within which to do my work.

So I used that, for example, as the frame of discipline to illustrate the spirituals, by making use of the liturgy, the vestments, and everything like that — using the vestments and appurtenances as, you might say, a vocabulary. His work is recognizable in its use of rich earth tone colors.