Description

The Boston Athenaeum (BA) and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM) will present concurrent exhibitions of the African American artist Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007). An AAP grant in November 2023 supported the exhibition at the ISGM, while proposed support for the BA is focused entirely on its exhibition’s accompanying catalogue, the first major publication on the artist. Both museums were critical sites for Crite’s artistic development in Boston, a city that has long grappled with gentrification and erasure in its Black communities, especially in neighborhoods Crite recorded and celebrated in his paintings. The catalogue will honor Crite’s commitment to fostering community by integrating oral history alongside scholarly essays. This multivocal publication will offer scholars and general audiences multiple entry points into the artist’s vast body of work and enduring legacy.