See Details on eBayavailable at
£510.30 Buy It Now, Click to see shipping cost, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: carpal-tunnel-syndrome ✉️ (4,939) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: WORLDWIDE & many other countries, Item: 387010800120 AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST ALLAN ROHAN CRITE DRAWING 1930'S 12 1/2 X 19 in BOSTON. allan rohan crite signed drawing measuring approximately 12 1/2 x 19 inches from the 1930's. Signed with his initals and full name Allan Rohan Crite was a Boston-based African American artist. He won several honors, such as the 350th Harvard University Anniversary Medal. 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.[1] Biography Allan Crite, School's Out (1936), Federal Art Project Crite was born in North Plainfield, New Jersey, on March 20, 1910.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] Recognition came early as well. His work was first shown at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1936.[4] Crite then attended Harvard Extension School, where he earned a BA degree in 1968.[5] 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; it supported his work as an artist for 30 years.[2] He later worked part time as a librarian at Harvard University's Grossman Library. In 1986, Boston named the intersection of Columbus Avenue and West Canton Street, steps from his home, Allan Rohan Crite Square.[6] 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.[1] Suffolk University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979.[7] He died in his sleep of natural causes on September 6, 2007, at age 97.[4][8] 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.[9] Artwork Douglass Square, Boston, by Allan Crite. Oil. 20" x 24". 1936, Federal Art Project 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.[10][5] Through his art, he intended to tell the story of African Americans as part of the fabric of American society and its reality.[5] By using representational style rather than modernism, Crite felt that he could more adequately "report" and capture the reality that African Americans were part of[5] but often unaccounted for.[3] 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.[2] Spirituals, he believed, expressed a certain humanity.[3] Crite was a devout Episcopalian, and his religion inspired many of his works.[11][12] 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.[13] On his faith and the role of liturgy in his pieces, Crite said in an interview:[3] 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. According to one biographer, his favorite color was "all colors" and his favorite time of year was "anything but winter."[2] 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."[12] Crite's works hang in more than a hundred American institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and Washington’s Phillips Collection.[14] The Boston Athenaeum holds the largest public collection of his paintings and watercolors, a bequest from Crite in gratitude for his long tenure there as a visiting artist.[citation needed] Books Crite's illustrated books include:[9] 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) 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:[11] 1920s 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 the Boston Athenaeum 1999 Frye Art Museum, Seattle[14] 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.[15] Crite, Allan Rohan. (Plainfield, NJ, 1910-Boston, MA, 2007) Bibliography and Exhibitions MONOGRAPHS AND SOLO EXHIBITIONS: Bible. N.T. and ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (engravings). The Revelation of St. John the Divine. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1995. An important contemporary revisualization of the apocalyptic Biblical text that has inspired so many artists and writers such as Dante, Durer and Milton. Text plus 15 original relief engravings (plate size 9 5/8 x 7 1/4 in.) by Crite printed on Japanese paper, mounted on large sheets of handmade heavyweight Italian paper. Typeface design by Dan Carr. Signed on limitation page by Crite. [Also issued as portfolio with all works individually signed.] Folio (16 x 22 inches), hand bound in burgundy linen, in black Italian cotton-covered clamshell box, with gold-stamped leather title inset. Limited numbered ed. of 300. Boston (MA). Boston Athenaeum. ALLAN CRITE's Boston. 1997. Exhibition announcement. Card. Boston (MA). Boston Public Library South End Branch. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE: Work from the Permanent Collection of the Boston Public Library. September 24-November 5, 2002. This exhibition was the centerpiece of a neighborhood-wide collaborative tribute to Dr. Crite. Other Crite exhibits in the South End included: In Allan Rohan Crite’s Footsteps at Gallery at the Piano Factory (October 4-28) featuring work by local artists who have been mentored by or influenced by Dr. Crite; and In Honor of Dr. Crite featuring Crite memorabilia and work by Guadulesa and Theresa-India Young at the Children’s Art Centre at United South End Settlements (September 6- October 4). Boston (MA). Museum of Afro-American History. The Lost and Found Paintings of ALLAN ROHAN CRITE. 1982. 8 pp. exhib. cat. Text by Byron Rushing. Boston (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE. 1975. Solo exhibition of 18 pen, ink and brush drawings of street scenes in the South End created in 1938-1940. Boston (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. In Memory of ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (1910-2007). Thru July, 2008. Solo exhibition of over fifty works from the Museum's collection. Clark, Edward. Annamae Palmer Crite and ALLAN ROHAN CRITE: Mother and Artist Son - An Interview. 1979. In: Melus: The Journal for the Society of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Winter 1979), pp. 67-(78), 3 b&w illus. 8vo (23 cm.), wraps. Columbus (OH). Ohio HIstorical Center. Were You There: An Illustrated Spiritual by ALLAN ROHAN CRITE. December 12, 2009-February 28, 2010. Solo exhibition. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. All Glory: Brush Drawing Meditations of the Prayer of Consecration. Cambridge: Society of St. John the Evangelist, 1947. Unpaginated artist's book of images, containing 24 pages of black pen illustrations based on the Prayer of Consecration from the American Book of Common Prayer, with the artist's handwritten text, half-title, title page and glossary page, all reproduced on the recto side of each page only. 8vo, gilt stamped blue cloth, pictorial d.j. First ed. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. An Autobiographical Sketch. N.d.. Unpublished manuscript. Boston: Suffolk University archives, donated 1984. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Apostles' Creed. N.p., n.d. (c.1964). 12 pp., illus. consisting of religious line drawings with captions in English and Spanish. Printed on one side only. Oblong 8vo (22 cm.), red paper covers. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Is It Nothing to You?. Boston: Department of Social Service, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, 1948. Unpag. (13 pp.) booklet, 7 illus. (including cover) of ink drawings created for this publication, with a printed Biblical verse and explanation of the subject of each drawing on opposing pages. "Drawings designed to show the Passion of Christ against the background of our modern world." An early work by Crite in the format of his Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven, but the images are more everyday, relaxed and depict commuters, political rallies and specific Boston locations as the setting for the Passion. 8vo, stapled pictorial wraps. First ed. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Recollections of My Childhood. 1976. 1 volume: 4 pp. intro., 44 b&w illus. and 1 color illus. (plate 36), consisting of photocopies of watercolor drawings with text captions. A visual recounting of the artist's childhood in Boston. The captions are also incorporated into the introductory text. All images are signed and dated 1976. [Collection of The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA, Gift of the artist.] Sheets 28 x 20.7 cm., volume 28.2 x 22.1 cm. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Some Impressions of Paige Academy, 149 Roxbury Street, Roxbury, MA. Allan Rohan Crite, 1977. 22 pp., 8 color illus. with captions. Oblong 4to, wraps. Limited ed. of 100 numbered copies. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948. Brief text and 72 full-page illustrations with corresponding small vignettes on opposite page, reproduced from Crite's brush and ink drawings, illustrating a trilogy of spirituals selected by Crite "Nobody Knows the Trouble I See," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Heaven." An unusual artist's book. 4to, cloth, pictorial d.j. First edition. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Towards a Rediscovery of the Cultural Heritage of the United States. Boston: Boston Athenaeum, 1968. 23 pp. text, pictorial front cover. Intro. Walter Muir Whitehill. Roughly one third of the text focuses on the changing role of Africans in the Americas. 8vo, pictorial stapled wraps. First ed. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN. Were you there when they crucified my Lord. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1944. A Negro Spiritual in Illustrations. Title page illus. plus 39 full page b&w illus. from Crite's brush and ink drawings with small facing symbolic decorations drawn from the liturgy, all created for this publication. Intro. Kenneth John Conant; apologia by Crite. An African American vision of the Passion. Very much an artist's illustrated book. 4to, silver gilt stamped black cloth, pictorial d.j. First edition. CRITE, ALLAN ROHAN (text and illus.). The Great Vigil of Easter: A Commentary. Alexandria (VA): Associated Parishes, Inc., 1977. 16 pp., illus. with eight different pen and ink drawings (one full-page) by Allan Rohan Crite. 4to (11 x 8.5 in.), stapled cream colored card wraps, gilt lettering. First ed. Day, Gardiner M. and ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (illus.). The Lord's Prayer: An Interpretation. Greenwich: The Seabury Press, 1954. Foreword by David R. Hunter. 98 pp., 6 full-page b&w illustrations and red and gray dust jacket design by Crite, reproduced from pen and ink drawings. The Hebrew letters of God's name [Yaweh] is contained in the upper portion of each image and the specific line of prayer to which the illustration refers is penned along the lower edge. The text is a sermon-style interpretation and meditation on the Lord's Prayer by the thirteenth rector of the historic Christ Church Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 12mo, 1/4 cloth lettered in red, over red marbleized papered boards, pictorial dust jacket. First ed. Mellin, Barbara Rizza. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE: Elder Statesman of African American Art [Interview]. 1999. In: The New Crisis Vol.106, no. 5 (September-October, 1999):46(3.) Philadelphia (PA). Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE. 1978. Solo exhibition. Seattle (WA). Frye Art Museum. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE: Artist-Reporter of the African American Community. March 10-May 6, 2001. 66 pp. exhib. cat., 40 color plates, 8 b&w illus., photo of artist, bibliog., checklist of 53 works (1932-70s) with thumbnail illus. of each. Important African American painter whose work focuses on realistic depictions of the Black middle-class community of Boston in combination with biblical figures. Text by Julie Levin Caro, artist Barbara Earl Thomas and Edmund Barry Gaither. Published to accompany the first noteworthy retrospective of Crite's paintings, drawings and prints. Oblong 4to (28 x 23 cm.; 11 x 9 in.), pictorial wraps. First ed. Washington (DC). Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oral history interview, January 16, 1979 culminating on October 22, 1980. 1979-80. Interview conducted by Robert Brown. Crite is joined in the second interview by Susan Thompson, his collaborator on many chasuble and altar frontal cloth designs of that period. [Transcript of taped interview: http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/oralhistories/transcripts/crite79.htm] Washington (DC). Washington National Cathedral. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE: Were You There. October 3-November 2, 2003. Solo exhibition of the 39 brush-and-ink drawings created by Allan Rohan Crite for his book Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, published in 1944 by Harvard University Press. Were You There is the first of two volumes by Crite illustrating folk spirituals. The drawings also represent a good example of the postwar work of artists who rebelled against the stereotypical depictions of black Americans prevalent in the 1920s. [Review of the discovery of these works by Bill Broadway, "Pictures at an Exhibition Paint Black Point of View; Protected but Overlooked in a Vault At Washington National Cathedral, Artist's Drawings Finally See the Light," The Washington Post, August 30, 1997.] GENERAL BOOKS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS: ALBANY (NY). Albany Institute of History and Art. The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists. January 3-February 11, 1945. vii, 77 pp., 63 b&w illus., checklist of 76 works by 38 artists, with 14 others mentioned as well. A major early survey. Foreword by John Davis Hatch, Jr.; essay "Up Till Now" by Alain Locke who states that the show is both "a representative and challenging cross-section of contemporary American art and, additionally, convincing evidence of the Negro’s maturing racial and cultural self-expression in painting and sculpture." The exhibition coincided with the last months of WWII and the return of the troops. Artists mentioned or included: Charles Alston, William Artis, Henry (Mike) Bannarn, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Eloise Bishop, Selma Burke, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Sr., Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Frederick Flemister, Meta Warrick Fuller, Rex Goreleigh, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, James Herring, May Howard Jackson, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Ronald Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Edward L. Loper, Archibald J. Motley, Frank Neal, Marion Perkins, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Thelma Streat, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Vernon Winslow, Hale Woodruff. [Traveled to: Brooklyn Museum of Art.] [Locke's essay is reprinted in: The Critical Temper of Alain Locke. A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture. New York: Garland, 191-94.] [Reviews: Carter G. Woodson, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (April 1945):227-228; "The Negro Artist Comes of Age," ARTnews (February 1-14, 1945) reprinted in ARTnews 91 (November 1992):109-10.] 8vo (9 x 6 in.; 23 cm.), wraps. First ed. ANDOVER (MA). Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Exeter Academy. To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. 240 pp., 138 color illus., 137 b&w illus. Text by Richard J. Powell, Jock Reynolds; intro by Kinshasha Holman. Includes painting, sculpture, and photographs by over 90 artists and historic photographs, gathered from the collection of 6 important university collections: Clark, Fisk, Hampton, Howard, N.C. Central, and Tuskegee. A major publication on African American Art. Includes among others: William E. Artis, Henry W. Bannarn, Arthur P. Bedou, John Biggers, Edmund Bruce, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Sr., Allan Rohan Crite, Frederick C. Flemister, Allan R. Freelon, Otis Galbreath, Sam Gilliam, Humbert Howard, Clementine Hunter, Wilmer A. Jennings, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Edmonia Lewis, Rose Piper, Horace Pippin, Prentiss H. Polk, James A. Porter, John N. Robinson, Charles Sallee, Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Charles Sebree, Alvin Smith, white artist Prentiss Taylor, James Lesesne Wells, Hale Woodruff. Large 4to, cloth, d.j. First ed. APPIAH, KWAME ANTHONY and HENRY LOUIS GATES, Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press, 1999; 2005. 5 Vols. 4500 pp., 1000 photographs, maps, illus. Expanded to 8 vols. No new information or in-depth discussion of the visual arts. Names of visual artists included in the accounts of each period of black history are often lumped into a one sentence list; very few have additional biographical entries. [As of 2011, far more substantial information on most of the artists is available from Wikipedia than is included in this Encyclopedia.] Includes mention of: James Presley Ball, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David A. Bailey, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Cornelius Battey, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Everald Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Roland Charles, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Albert V. Chong, Robert H. Colescott, Allan R. Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Murry Depillars, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, the Goodridge Brothers, Rex Goreleigh, Tapfuma Gutsa, Palmer Hayden, Lyle Ashton Harris, Chester Higgins, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Seydou Keita, Lois Mailou Jones, William (Woody) Joseph, Wifredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Fern Logan, Stephen Marc, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, Willie Middlebrook, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald Motley, Gordon Parks, Horace Pippin, Prentiss H. Polk, James A. Porter, Elizabeth Prophet, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Chéri Samba, Augusta Savage, Jeffrey Scales, Addison L. Scurlock, Charles Sebree, Johannes Segogela, Twins Seven- even, Coreen Simpson, LornaSimpson, Moneta Sleet, Marvin & Morgan Smith, Renée Stout, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hank Willis Thomas, Dox Thrash, James Vanderzee, Christian Walker, the Wall of Respect, Laura Wheeler Waring, Augustus Washington, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles White, Cynthia Wiggins, Carla Williams, Pat Ward Williams, et al. The entry on African Women Artists includes an odd and out-of-date collection of names: Elizabeth Olowu, Agnes Nyanhongo, Alice Sani, Inji Efflatoun, Grace Chigumira, Theresa Musoke, Palma Sinatoa, Elsa Jacob, and Terhas Iyasu. Hopefully future editions will follow the path of the substantially expanded edition of 2005 and will alter the overall impression that black visual artists are not worth the time and attention of the editors. [Note: Now out-of-print and available only through exorbitant subscription to the Oxford African American Studies Center (OAASC) a single database incorporating multiple Oxford encyclopedias, ongoing addiitions will apparently be unavailable to individuals or to most small libraries in the U.S. or worldwide.] 4to (29 cm.; 10.9 x 8.6 in.), cloth. Seond ed. ATLANTA (GA). Atlanta University. Third Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints by Negro Artists: The Two Generations. April 2-30, 1944. Juried group exhibition. Artists included: Charles Alston, William E. Artis, Annabelle Baker, Mike Bannarn, Romare Bearden (Honorable Mention), John T. Biggers, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, William S. Carter, Claude Clark, Francis P. Conch, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Mary Tobias Daniel, Roy DeCarava, Arthur Diggs, Lillian Dorsey, John Farrar (top prize - Ferrar was 16 yrs. old), Frederick C. Flemister, Charlotte Franklin, Charles Haig, Vertis C. Hayes, Mark Hewitt, Jenelsie Holloway, John Miller Howard, Sargent Johnson, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Clarence Lawson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Samella Lewis, Frank Neal, Cecil D. Nelson, Jr. (winner, John Hope Purchase award, landscape painting), Allison Oglesby, James Dallas Parks, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Walter W. Smith, Clyde Turner, John E. Washington, Ora Washington, Albert Wells, James Lesesne Wells, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson (Atlanta University award), Vernon Winslow, Hale Woodruff, Frank Wyley, et al. [Review: Art News, May 1, 1944:7.] ATLANTA (GA). Hammonds House Museum. Telling It Like It Is: The Art of Curlee Raven Holton: Prints, Drawings and Selections from the Experimental Printmaking Institute. July 20-August, 2008. Group exhibition. Included: Benny Andrews, Emma Amos, Berrisford Boothe, Barbara Bullock, Gregory Coates, Roy Crosse, Allan Rohan Crite, Dexter Davis, David Driskell, John Dowell, Allan Edmunds, Melvin Edwards, Wanda Ewing, Sam Gilliam, Robin Holder, Joseph Holston, Kofi Kayiga, Paul Keene, Lynn Linnemeier, Al Loving Ulysses Marshall, Carlton Parker, Janet Taylor Pickett, Faith Ringgold, James Rose, Charles Sallee, William T. Williams. ATLANTA (GA). High Museum of Art. African American Art in Atlanta: Public and Corporate Collections. May 11-June 17, 1984. 18 pp., 16 b&w illus., checklist of 72 works by 50 artists, including numerous women artists. Text by Evelyn Mitchell. Important early reference. Includes: Jim Adair, Terry Adkins, Benny Andrews, William Artis, Ellsworth Ausby, Herman Kofi Bailey, Romare Bearden, Shirley Bolton, Beverly Buchanan, Elizabeth Catlett, Floyd Coleman, Allan Rohan Crite, Michael Cummings, Joseph Delaney, Robert Duncanson, Tina Marie Dunkley, Sam Gilliam, Michael Harris, Jenelsie Holloway, Manuel Hughes, Richard Hunt, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Viola Burley-Leak, Larry Francis Lebby, Samella Lewis, Arturo Lindsay, Jerome Meadows, John M. Howard, Lev Mills, Sana Musasama, Curtis Patterson, Maurice Pennington, Robert Edwin Peppers, K. Joy Ballard-Peters, Howardena Pindell, John Riddle, John D. Robinson, Betye Saar, Thomas Shaw, Jewel W. Simon, Freddie Styles, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Carlton Omar Thompson, Yvonne Thompson, Charles White, Claudia Widdis, Sandra Kate Williams, John Wilson, and Hale Woodruff. Sq. 8vo (22 x 22 cm; 8.5 x 8.5 in.), wraps. First ed. ATLANTA (GA). Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta College of Art. Lasting Impressions: Master Artists and Master Printmakers at The Experimental Printmaking Institute. July 16-25, 2004. Exhibition of a portfolio created by 16 artists and master printmakers and additional works. Curated by Curlee Raven Holton, founder and director of Lafayette College's Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI), Lafayette College, Eaton, PA. African American artists include Emma Amos, Berrisford Boothe, Barbara Bullock, Greg Coates, Alan Rohan Crite, Roy Crosse, Dexter Davis, David Driskell, Wanda Ewing, Sam Gilliam, Curlee Raven Holton, Kofi Kayiga, Paul Keene, Hughie Lee-Smith, Lynn Linnemeier, Al Loving, Lois Mailou Jones, Ulysses Marshall, Carlton Parker, Faith Ringgold, and Charles Sallee. [Traveled to Heights Arts, Cleveland Heights, OH, October 9-November 7, 2004, but the exhibition seems to have been substantially reduced at this venue.] BLOCKSON, CHARLES, ed. Catalogue of the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, a Unit of the Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. 820 pp., a dozen photographs, excellent title, name and detailed subject indices, approximately 11,000 entries describing a variety of historical artifacts: printed books, pamphlets, addresses and speeches, art catalogues, newspapers, periodicals, manuscripts, broadsides, handbills, lithographs, tape recordings, stamps, coins, maps, oil paintings, and sculpture that all relate to African, African American, and Caribbean life and history. Intro by Dorothy Porter Wesley. The strength of the collection is such that even though the focus was not on art, there are nonetheless at least 250 art and architecture-related holdings. Bibliography entries specifically on the Fine Arts (including African art): items 640-806 (pp. 35-43); photography pp. 392-3. Artists mentioned (generally as authors rather than artists) include: Benny Andrews, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Jacqueline Fonvielle Bontemps, Clarence C. Bullock, E. Simms Campbell, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Leroy P. Clarke, William A. Cooper, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, David Driskell, Robert Duncanson, Elton Fax, Tom Feelings, Oliver (Ollie) Harrington, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Ida Ella Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Jesse Aaron, John L. Moore, Archibald Motley, Henry O. Tanner, Carroll Simms, Samella Lewis, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, Thomas Sills, Augusta Savage, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Richard Samuel Roberts, James Vanderzee, Ruth Waddy, Deborah Willis (Ryan), Charles White. BOSTON (MA). Boston University Art Gallery. Social Concern and Urban Realism: American Painting in the 1930s. 1983. Exhibition catalogue. Text by Patricia Hills. Includes Allan Rohan Crite. BOSTON (MA). Boston University Art Gallery. Syncopated Rhythms: 20th-Century African American Art from the George and Joyce Wein Collection. November 18, 2005-January 22, 2006. 100 pp. exhib. cat., 64 color illus. Curated with text by Patricia Hills and catalogue entries by Hills and Melissa Renn; foreword by Ed Bradley. Includes 60 works (paintings, sculpture, drawings and a painted story quilt.) Exhibition of a range of works done in the late 1920s through the 1990s and is particularly strong in works of the 1940s-'70s. Artists include: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Bruce Brice, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Miles Davis, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Minnie Evans, Palmer Hayden, Oliver Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Wifredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Bob Thompson, Charles White, Michael Kelly Williams, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff and Richard Yarde. 4to (28 x 22 cm.), wraps. BOSTON (MA). Museum of Fine Arts. Jubilee: Afro-American Artists on Afro-America. 1975. 46 pp. exhib. cat., 35 illus., 4 color plates, plus frontis. group photo, biogs., exhibs. for each artist, exhibition checklist. Text by Barry E. Gaither. Includes: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Kwasi Seitu Asante, Roland Ayers, Romare Bearden, Camille Billops, Calvin Burnett, Dana Chandler, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Barkley Hendricks, Earl Hooks, Arnold James Hurley, Milton Johnson (aka Milton Derr), William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Pierre Le Clere, Archibald Motley, Nefertiti, James Phillips, Anderson Pigatt, Faith Ringgold, Augusta Savage, Charles Searles, Afred J. Smith, Jr., Edgar Sorrells, Nelson Stevens, Barbara Ward, Richard Watson, Pheoris West, Charles White, John Wilson, and Richard Yarde. 4to (28 cm.), stapled lime green wraps, lettered in black. First ed. BOSTON (MA). Museum of Fine Arts. Massachusetts Masters: Afro-American Artists. January 16-March 6, 1988. 48 pp., 34 full-page illus., 7 in color. Text by Barry Gaither. 34 artists (8 women) represented and numerous others discussed: Ellen Banks, Ronald Boutte, Calvin Burnett, Dana Chandler, Allan Rohan Crite, Henry DeLeon, Milton Derr, Robert Freeman, Meta Warrick Fuller, George Ganges, Tyrone Geter, Paul Goodnight, Lois Mailou Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Kofi Kayiga, Harriet Kennedy, Marcia Lloyd, Vusumuzi Maduna, Edward McCluney, Bryan McFarlane, Taylor McLean, Alvin Paige, Benjamin Peterson, James Reuben Reed, Nelson Stevens, Richard Stroud, James Toatley, William Travis, Barbara Ward, René Westbrook, Clarence Washington, John Wilson, Richard Yarde, Theresa India Young. Others mentioned in the text include Scipio Moorhead, Joshua Johnson, Edmonia Lewis, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Sargent Johnson, Edwin Harleston, Stanley Pinckney, Alfred Smith, Dolores Johnson, Fern Cunningham, Karen Eutemy, George Cook, Nefertiti, Deirdre Bibby, Gary Rickson, Sharon Dunn, Elliot Knight, Yantee Bell, Arnold Hurley, Boston muralist James Brown, Suzanne Thompson, Roy Cato, Jr., Roy Cato, Sr., Lovett Thompson, John Keyes, Benjamin Peterson, Michael Coblyn, Diane Wignall, Kofi Bailey, James Phillips, Edgar Sorrells, Archibald Motley, Pheoris West; photos of Benny Andrews, Camille Billops, Ernest Crichlow, Barkley Hendricks. [Review: Allan R. Gold, NYT, January 26, 1988.] 4to, stapled white wraps. First ed. BOSTON (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro American Artists. What We Collect: Works from the Permanent Collection. 2004. Group exhibition. Included in the show: Ellen Banks, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Roy DeCarava, Calvin Burnett, Allan Rohan Crite, Chester Dames, Robert Freeman, Margo Humphrey, Wilmer Jennings, Edward McCluney, Nefertiti, Joseph Norman, James Reuben Reed, Albert Smith, Bob Thompson, Cheryl Warrick, Renée Westbrook, Charles White, Jack Whitten, Richard Yarde. BOSTON (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. Our Elders: Crite and Dames: An Exhibition of the Work of Allan R. Crite and Chester A. Dames. September 19-October 17, 1971. Unpag. (11 pp.) exhib. cat., illus. Text by Edmund B. Gaither. Two-person exhibition of paintings, drawings, and prints by Allan Rohan Crite and Chester A. Dames. 17 works by Crite; 24 works by Dames. [MNCAAA Exhibition Files.] 8vo (22 cm.), wraps. First ed. BOSTON (MA). Northeastern University Art Gallery, AAMARP Department Galleries. The Fantastic Image. October 9-November 4, 1988. Group exhibition by artists in the Northeastern University African American Residency program. Included: Calvin Burnett, Dana Chandler, Allan Rohan Crite, Milton Derr, Paul Goodnight, Kofi Kayiga, Marcia Lloyd, Vusumuzi Maduna, Jim Reed [James Reuben Reed], René Westbrook, John Wilson. BRITTON, CRYSTAL A. African-American Art: The Long Struggle. New York: Smithmark, 1996. 128 pp., 107 color plates (mostly full-page and double-page), notes, index. Artists include: Terry Adkins, Charles Alston, Amalia Amaki, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, William E. Artis, Radcliffe Bailey, Xenobia Bailey, James P. Ball, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Edward Mitchell Bannister, John T. Biggers, Camille Billops, Willie Birch, Bob Blackburn, Betty Blayton, David Bustill Bowser, Grafton Tyler Brown, James Andrew Brown, Kay Brown, Vivian Browne, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Margaret Burroughs, Carole Byard, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Robert Colescott, Houston Conwill, Eldzier Cortor, Renée Cox, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Giza Daniels-Endesha, Dave [the Potter], Thomas Day, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Leonardo Drew, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, Minnie Evans, William Farrow, Gilbert Fletcher, James Forman, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Michele Godwin, David Hammons, Edwin Harleston, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, Thomas Heath, white artist Jon Hendricks (no illus.), Robin Holder, May Howard Jackson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Lois Mailou Jones, Cliff Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie-Lee Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Juan Logan, Valerie Maynard, Dindga McCannon, Sam Middleton, Scipio Moorhead, Keith Morrison, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Sana Musasama, Marilyn Nance, Gordon Parks, Marion Perkins, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Harriet Powers, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Martin Puryear, Patrick Reason, Gary Rickson, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Joyce J. Scott, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Lorna Simpson, William H. Simpson, Clarissa Sligh, Frank Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Nelson Stevens, Renée Stout, Freddie L. Styles, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Jean Toche (no illus.), Lloyd Toone, Bill Traylor, James Vanderzee, Annie E. Walker, William Walker, Laura Wheeler Waring, Carrie Mae Weems, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Grace Williams, Michael Kelly Williams, Pat Ward Williams, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, Hale Woodruff, et al. 4to (32 cm.), pictorial boards, d.j. First ed. BROOKLYN (NY). MoCADA Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art. From Challenge to Triumph: African American Prints & Printmaking, 1867-2002. Thru February 22, 2003. Important survey. Artists included: Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Robert Blackburn, Grafton Tyler Brown, Calvin Burnett, Margaret T. Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Ed Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, David C. Driskell, Allan Freelon, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Linda Hiwot, Robin Holder, Albert Huey, Mary Howard Jennings, Wilmer Jennings, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Ronald Joseph, Paul Keene, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Whitfield Lovell, Richard Mayhew, Lev T. Mills, Evangeline J. Montgomery, Otto Neals, Hayward Oubré, Howardena Pindell, Vincent Smith, Dread Scott, William E. Scott, Lou Stovall, Raymond Steth, Dox Thrash, Ruth Waddy, Cheryl Warrick, James Lesesne Wells, John Wilson, Charles White, Hale Woodruff. CAMBRIDGE (MA). Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. Passage - A group exhibition referencing the legacy of the Middle Passage and the inhuman transport of Africans to America as slaves. January 27-February 28, 1997. Multi media exhibition and panel discussion by artists: Reginald (Reggie) Jackson, Don Stull, Bryan McFarlane, Susan Thompson, Allan Crite, Paul Goodnight, Edward Strickland, Dana Chandler, Kofi Kayiga, Ife Franklin, Khalid Kodi, Hakim Raquib, Henry DeLeon. CAMPBELL, MARY SCHMIDT. Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America. New York: The Studio Museum and Abrams, N.Y., 1994. 200 pp., 140 illus., 55 in color, 29 artists mentioned along with an overall focus on music, dance, literature, and general culture, chronols., bibliog., good reference bibliography, books and magazines illustrated by Aaron Douglas, index. Texts by David Levering Lewis, David C. Driskell, Deborah Willis Ryan, J. Stewart. Artists included: Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Selma Burke, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Aaron Douglas, David Driskell, Meta Vaux Fuller, Palmer Hayden, Charles S. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Archibald Motley, Richard B. Nugent, James A. Porter, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Henry O. Tanner, James Vanderzee, Laura W. Waring, Charles White, Hale Woodruff. Many others mentioned very briefly in passing. [Review: Kay Larsen, "Born Again," New York Magazine, March 16, 1987:74-75, color illus.] 4to (30 cm.; 11.5 x 8.6 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. CATTELL, JACQUES, ed. Who's Who in American Art 16. New York: Bowker, 1984. Curators who are not also artists are included in this bibliographic entry but are not otherwise listed in the database: We are NOT going to go through all of these volumes over the decades; this one is catalogued simply to record the degree to which living African American artists had entered the conciousness of the mainstream American art world as of 1984. [Should be consulted along with Falk's Who Was Who in American Art (1985) to complete the "awareness list" as of the mid-1980s.] 160 artists are included here along with 1000 pages of far more obscure white artists: p. 21, Benny Andrews, 33, Ellsworth Ausby, 50, Richmond Barthé; 57, Romare Bearden, 76, John Biggers, 83, Betty Blayton, 98, Frank Bowling, 108, Arthur Britt, 112, Wendell Brooks, 116, Marvin Brown, 117-18, Vivian Browne, 121, Linda Goode Bryant, 128, Calvin Burnett, 129, Margaret Burroughs, 132, Carole Byard, 133, Walter Cade, 148, Yvonne Pickering Carter, 168, Claude Clark, 178-79, Floyd Coleman, 179, Robert Colescott, 181, Paul Collins, 184, James Conlon, 188-89, Arthur Coppedge; 191, Eldzier Cortor, Averille Costley-Jacobs, 198, Allan Crite; 210, D'Ashnash-Tosi [Barbara Chase-Riboud], 213-14, Alonzo Davis, 219-20, Roy DeCarava, 222, Avel DeKnight, 226, Richard Dempsey, 228, Murry DePillars, 237, Raymond Dobard, 239, Jeff Donaldson, 243, John Dowell, 246, David Driskell, 256, Allan Edmunds, 256-57, James Edwards, 260, David Elder, 265, Whitney John Engeran, 267, Marion Epting, 270, Burford Evans, 271, Minnie Evans, 271-72, Frederick Eversley, 277, Elton Fax, 304, Charlotte Franklin, 315, Edmund Barry Gaither (curator), 317, Reginald Gammon, 325, Herbert Gentry, 326, Joseph Geran, 328, Henri Ghent (curator), 332, Sam Gilliam, 346, Russell Gordon, 354, Rex Goreleigh, 361, Eugene Grigsby, 375, Robert Hall, 380, Leslie King-Hammond (curator), 381, Grace Hampton, 385, Marvin Harden, 406, Barkley Hendricks, 418, Leon Hicks, 414, Freida High-Wasikhongo, 424-25, Al Hollingsworth, 428, Earl Hooks, 433, Humbert Howard, 439, Richard Hunt, 450, A. B. Jackson, Oliver Jackson; 451, Suzanne Jackson, 454, Catti James, Frederick James, 464, Lester L. Johnson; 467, Ben Jones, 467-68, Calvin Jones, 469, James Edward Jones, Lois Jones, 471, Theodore Jones, 489, Paul Keene; 492, James Kennedy, 495-96, Virginia Kiah, 535, Raymond Lark, 540-41, Jacob Lawrence, 546, Hughie Lee-Smith, 557, Samella Lewis, 586, Cheryl Ilene McClenney (arts admin.), 595, Anderson Macklin, 620, Philip Lindsay Mason, 625, Richard Mayhew, 597, Oscar McNary, 598, Kynaston McShine (curator), 610, 637, Marianne Miles a.k.a. Marianne; 638, Earl Miller, 640-41, Lev Mills, 649, Evangeline Montgomery; 653, Norma Morgan, 655, Keith Morrison, 657, Dewey Mosby (curator), 671, Otto Neals, 693, Ademola Olugebefola, 700, Hayward Oubré, John Outterbridge, Wallace Owens, 702, William Pajaud, 706, James Parks, 710, Curtis Patterson, 711, Sharon Patton (curator), 711-12, John Payne, 720, Regenia Perry (curator), 724, Bertrand Phillips; 727, Delilah Pierce, 728, Vergniaud Pierre-Noël, 729, Stanley Pinckney, Howardena Pindell, 744, Leslie Price, Arnold Prince, 747, Mavis Pusey, 752, Bob Ragland, 759, Roscoe Reddix, 763, Robert Reid, 768, John Rhoden, 772, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, 774, Faith Ringgold, 778, Lucille Roberts, 803, Mahler Ryder, 804, Betye Saar, 815, Raymond Saunders, 834, John Scott, 841, James Sepyo, 857, Thomas Sills, 859, Jewel Simon, 861, Merton Simpson, Lowery Sims (curator); 865, Van Slater, 869, Dolph Smith, 873, Vincent Smith, 886, Francis Sprout, 890-91, Shirley Stark, 898, Nelson Stevens, 920, Luther Stovall, 909, Robert Stull, 920, Ann Tanksley, James Tanner, 924, Rod Taylor, 922, William Bradley Taylor [Bill Taylor], 929, Elaine Thomas, 946, Curtis Tucker, 949, Leo Twiggs, 970, Larry Walker, 977, James Washington, 979, Howard Watson, 994, Amos White, 995, Franklin White, 996 Tim Whiten, 1001-2, Chester Williams, 1003, Randolph Williams, Todd Williams, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, 1005, Edward Wilson, George Wilson, 1005-6, John Wilson, 1007, Frank Wimberley, 1016, Rip Woods, 1017, Shirley Woodson, 1019, Bernard Wright, 1025, Charles Young, 1026, Kenneth Young, Milton Young. CHASE, JUDITH WRAGG. Afro-American Art and Craft. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1971. 142 pp., 227 b&w illus., bibliog. Noteworthy inclusion of early plantation craftsmen, cabinetmakers, weavers, quiltmakers, basketmakers and woodcarvers as well as contemporary African American art and crafts. Includes: Charles Alston, William Artis, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Eldzier Cortor, William Craft, Dale Brockman Davis, Aaron Douglas, Minnie Evans, Regina Foreman, Allan Freelon, Reginald Gammon, William Hayden, Jacob Lawrence, Horace Pippin, Phillip P. Simmons, Peter Simmons, Elmer Davis Taylor, James Lesesne Wells, and hundreds of others. 4to, cloth, d.j. First ed. CHICAGO (IL). Art Institute of Chicago. A Century of Collecting: African American Art in the Art Institute of Chicago. February 15-May 18, 2003. Group exhibition. Curated by Daniel Schulman, associate curator of modern and contemporary art. 60 artists (over half contemporary) including: Benny Andrews, Radcliffe Bailey, Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Hilda Wilkinson Brown, Margaret Burroughs, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Edward Clark, Kerry Stuart Coppin, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles C. Dawson, Aaron Douglas, John E. Dowell, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Melvin Edwards, Walter Ellison, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, William Harper, George Herriman, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Richard Hunt, Joshua Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Willie Middlebrook, Keith Morrison, Archibald J. Motley, Marion Perkins, Allie Pettway, Jessie T. Pettway, Robert Pious, Adrian Piper, Horace Pippin, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, William Edouard Scott, Vincent Smith, Nelson Stevens, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, James Vanderzee, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Gearldine Westbrook, Charles White, Sarah Ann Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Joseph E. Yoakum. CHICAGO (IL). Renaissance Society, University of Chicago. Paintings and Sculpture by American Negro Artists. December 8-20, 1936. Group exhibition. Included: Richmond Barthé, Samuel A. Countee, Otis Galbreath, Palmer Hayden, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Suzanne Ogunjami Wilson (as Suzanna Ogunjami), Allan Rohan Crite, James Porter, J. H. D. Robinson (as J.D.H.), Winfred Jonathan Russell, Charles Sebree, Laura Wheeler Waring, and Hale Woodruff. CHICAGO (IL). Tanner Art Galleries. Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940). July 4-September 2, 1940. Exhib. cat., 18 illus. Assembled by the American Negro Exposition. Statement by Alain Locke, chairman of the art committee; lists selections jury, awards jury, exhibition committees. Included 100 artists: Charles Alston, William E. Artis, John Ingliss Atkinson, Henry Avery, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Leslie G. Bolling, Selma Burke, Margaret Burroughs, Simms Campbell, Fred Carlo, William S. Carter, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles C. Davis, Charles C. Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Elba Lightfoot DeReyes, Walter Ellison, William M. Farrow, Elton Fax, Frederick C. Flemister, Allan R. Freelon, Meta Vaux Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, J. Eugene Grigsby, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William A. Harper, Palmer C. Hayden, William M. Hayden, Vertis Hayes, James Herring, Fred Hollingsworth, Zell Ingram, Burt Jackson, Robert M. Jackson, Louise E. Jefferson, Wilmer Jennings, Malvin Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lawrence Arthur Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence (won second prize), Clarence Lawson, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Richard Lindsey, Romeyn Van Vleck Lippman, Ed Loper, Rosemary Louis, John Lutz, Francis McGee, Ron Moody, Archibald J. Motley, George E. Neal, Robert L. Neal, Marion Perkins, Frederick Perry, Robert Pious, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Georgette Powell, Teodoro Ramos-Blanco (South American artist), Donald Reid, John Rollins, David Ross, Charles Sallee, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, Samuel Simms, Albert A. Smith, Marvin Smith, Mary E. Smith, William E. Smith, Thelma Streat, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Daniel N. Tillman, Earl Walker, Laura Wheeler Waring, Wilbert (Masood Ali) Warren, Claude Weaver, Albert Wells, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, Leroy Winbush, Hale Woodruff, Leon Wright. [Among the many reviews: Selma Gordon, "Seventy-Five Years of Negro Progress," The Criss 48 (January 1941):10-11+; mainstream review in Newsweek Vol XVI, No 11, September 9, 1940.] 8vo, pictorial wraps. Exhibition poster and catalogue cover design by James Lesesne Wells. CINCINNATI (OH). Taft Museum of Art. The Great Migration: The Evolution of African American Art, 1790-1945. June 16-October 22, 2000. 25 pp. exhib. cat., 35 illus. including cover plates (27 in color), bibliog., checklist of 49 works. Text by R. Kumasi Hampton. Many lesser-known works from Ohio and Kentucky collections, including numerous women artists. Georgia E. Beasley, Rozelle (Zell) Ingram, Vera Jackson, Mary Edmonia Lewis, Geneva Higgins McGee, James Presley Ball, Jr., Edward Bannister, Romare Bearden, Elmer W. Brown, Fred Carlo, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Joseph Delaney, Robert S. Duncanson, John Wesley Hardrick, Sargent Claude Johnson, William Henry Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Fredrick Douglas Jones, Jr., Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Gordon Parks, Marion Perkins, Elijah Pierce, Horace Pippin, Charles E. Porter, James A. Porter, Patrick Reason, Charles Sallee, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Marvin and Morgan Smith, William E. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, James VanDerZee, James Lesesne Wells, Hale Woodruff. Oblong 4to (22 x 28 cm.), stapled wraps. First ed. CLARK, EDWARD. Black Writers in New England: A Bibliography, With Biographical Notes, of Books by and About Afro-American Writers Associated With New England in the (Special Report). Boston: National Park Service, 1985. 76 pp. Short bios of over 500 New England writers. Includes: Allan Rohan Crite. [See: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/onlinebooks/boaf/blackwriters.pdf] 8vo (8.8 x 6 in.), wraps. COLLEGE PARK (MD). University of Maryland Art Gallery. Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. 1998. 192 pp., 94 color plates, 33 b&w illus., checklist of 100 works by 61 artists, biogs., bibliog. Text by Terry Gipps. Important artist's collection. Includes: Terry Adkins, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Grafton Tyler Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Sr., Robert Colescott, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, David Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Melvin Edwards, Minnie Evans, Meta Warrick Fuller, Sam Gilliam, Michael D. Harris, James V. Herring, Earl J. Hooks, Margo Humphrey, Clementine Hunter, Wilmer Jennings, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, Jerome Meadows, William McNeil, Sam Middleton, Keith Morrison, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, James Phillips, Stephanie Pogue, P.H. Polk, Charles Ethan Porter, James A. Porter, Martin Puryear, Ray Saunders, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, Frank Smith, Vincent Smith, Gilda Snowden, Frank Stewart, Lou Stovall, Henry O. Tanner, Bill Traylor, Alma Thomas, Yvonne Edwards Tucker, James VanDerZee, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff. 4to (12 x 9 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. COLLEGE PARK (MD). University of Maryland Art Gallery. Selections from the David C. Driskell Collection. January 20-March 22, 2003. An exhibition of work by 39 major African American artists: Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John T. Biggers, Grafton Tyler Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Kevin E. Cole, Bob Colescott, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Aaron Douglas, Meta Warrick Fuller, Sam Gilliam, Michael D. Harris, Earl J. Hooks, Margo Humphrey, Clementine Hunter, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Keith Morrison, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Stephanie Pogue, Martin Puryear, Augusta Savage, Frank E. Smith, Frank Stewart, Lou Stovall, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, James Vanderzee, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Walter J. Williams, William T. Williams, Hale Woodruff. COLLEGE PARK (MD). University of Maryland Art Gallery. Successions: Prints by African-American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection. April 1-29, 2002. 48 pp. exhib. cat., 26 color & b&w illus., checklist of 62 works by 45 artists, glossary of terms. Intro. by David C. Driskell; statement by the collectors, text by Adrienne L. Childs. Includes: Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Camille Billops, Robert Blackburn, Moe Brooker, Calvin Burnett, Nora Mae Carmichael, Elizabeth Catlett, Kevin Cole, Robert Colescott, Allan Rohan Crite, Louis Delsarte, David Driskell, Allan Edmunds, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Varnette Honeywood, Margo Humphrey, Paul Keene, Wadsworth Jarrell, Lois Mailou Jones, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Samella Lewis, Percy B. Martin, Tom Miller, Evangeline Montgomery, Keith Morrison, Joseph Norman, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Anita Philyaw, Stephanie Pogue, John T. Riddle, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Preston Sampson, Frank Smith, Vincent Smith, Lou Stovall, James L. Wells, William T. Williams, John Wilson. [Traveled to: Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; David Driskell Center, University of Maryland.] 4to (11 x 8.5 in.), pictorial wraps. First ed. DALLAS (TX). Hall of Negro Life, Texas Centennial Exposition. Texas Centennial Exposition: Exhibition of Fine Art Productions by American Negroes. June 19-November 29, 1936. The visual arts exhibitions were curated by Alonzo J. Aden. Art in the Hall of Negro Life included: a large bas-relief seal sculpted by Raoul Josset over the door depicting a figure with broken chains. Four murals of black history were commissioned from Aaron Douglas and were displayed in the lobby: Bondage (Corcoran Gallery) and Aspiration (San Francisco Museum of Art); the other two are believed lost. Two rooms of paintings and sculpture by Texas artists Samuel A. Countee and an unknown artist from Galveston named Frank Sheinall as well as artists from other states whose work was loaned by the Harmon Foundation. Included: Henry O. Tanner, James Latimer Allen, Allan Rohan Crite, Palmer Hayden, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., James L. Wells, Hale Woodruff, Laura Wheeler Waring, Arthur Diggs, Malvin Gray Johnson, and Hilda Brown, Richmond Barthé, Sargent Johnson, Robert Pious, Leslie Bolling, and Henry Letcher (potter.) [Review/article by curator Alonzo J. Aden, "Educational Tour Through the Hall of Negro Life," Southern Workman [Hampton, VA] 65 (November 1936):331-341 mentions Aaron Douglas murals, Richmond Barthé, Archibald Motley, Sargent Johnson, James Wells, Hale Woodruff, Samuel Countee, Laura Waring, Leslie Bolling [as Boling], Henry Letcher, R.A. Johnson; photo of Elton Fax.] DRISKELL, DAVID C. Two Centuries of Black American Art. Los Angeles: Museum of Art, 1976. 221 pp. exhib. cat., 205 illus., 32 in color, bibliog., index. Groundbreaking survey exhibition of African American art. Texts by Driskell; catalogue notes by Leonard Simon. Includes Dave the Potter, Charles H. Alston, William E. Artis, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Grafton Tyler Brown, David Butler, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Thomas Day, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Minnie Evans, Edwin A. Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Felrath Hines, Earl J. Hooks, Julien Hudson, Clementine Hunter, Wilmer Jennings, James Butler Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Leo Moss, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Marion Perkins, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Patrick Reason, John Rhoden, Gregory Ridley, Jr., William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Henry Ossawa Tanner, William (Bill) Taylor, Alma Thomas, Dox Thrash, Laura Wheeler Waring, Edward Webster, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Walter Williams, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff. Additional artists mentioned in the text: James Allen, Leslie Bolling, John Kane (?), Jules Lion, James Vanderzee, many more. [Traveled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX; and the Brooklyn Museum, NY.] 4to, wraps. First ed. EDWARDS, AMBER (Prod. and Dir.]. Against the Odds: [video]: the artists of the Harlem Renaissance (Video). Alexander (VA): PBS Video, 1999. AGOA PBS Video. Includes discussion of or participation of Allan Rohan Crite, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Archibald Motley, James A. Porter, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Hale Woodruff, et al. VHS-NTSC: color (with b&w sequences, sd; plus 1 index; 60 min. FALK, PETER HASTINGS, ed. The Annual Art Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1888-1950. Madison (CT): Sound View Press, 1990. 1117 pp. Includes (among others): Henry Avery, 74 (1937); Richmond Barthé, 89 (1940, 1943); Romare Bearden, 96 (1947); William Sylvester Carter, 192 (1940); Eldzier Cortor, 233 (1940-46, 1948-49); Allan Rohan Crite, 242 (1942); Frank Joseph Dillon; William McKnight Farrow, 316 (1923); William A. Harper, 408-09 (1903-10); Sargent Claude Johnson, 484 (1931); Frederick D. Jones, Jr.; Jacob Lawrence, 541 (1943-44, 1946, 1949); Archibald Motley, 635 (1921-23, 1925, 1929-35, 1949); George Neal, 646 (1936, 1938); Marion Perkins, 695 (1942, 1944, 1947-49, 1951); Horace Pippin, 708 (1943, 1945); William Edouard Scott, 807 (1911); Charles Sebree, 808 (1935-36, 1938, 1940, 1942); Thelma Johnson Streat, 868 (1943); Henry O. Tanner, 878-79 (1896, 1898-99, 1901, 1905-10, 1912-13, 1916, 1923-24, 1926-29, 1939); Laura Wheeler Waring, 948 (1916); Charles White, 948 (1942). FALK, PETER HASTINGS, ed. Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999. 3 Vols. 3724 pp. The 1985 publication is a summary compiled from the original 34 volumes of American Art Annual: Who's Who in Art, no new entries. It is in some ways an account of the spotty knowledge that the white art world had acquired about black artists during the decades after WWII. Many glaring omissions. The 1999 edition seems to have substantial additions. Included: Alonzo Aden, Frank Herman Alston, Jr., Frederick Cornelius Alston, Dorothy Austin, Henry Avery, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Richmond Barthé, John Biggers, James Bland, Leslie Bolling, William E. Braxton, Wendell T. Brooks, Elmer William Brown, Eugene J. Brown, Samuel Joseph Brown, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs, Elmer Simms Campbell, John Carlis, Jr., William S. Carter, Dana C. Chandler, Jr., Samuel O. Collins, Eldzier Cortor, Norma Criss, Allan Crite, Charles C. Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Arthur Diggs, Frank J. Dillon, Aaron Douglas, Charles Early, Walter W. Ellison, Annette Ensley, William M. Farrow, Allan Freelon, Meta Fuller, Robert Gates, Rex Goreleigh, Donald O. Greene, Samuel P. Greene, Charles E. Haines, John Wesley Hardrick, William A. Harper, John Taylor Harris, Palmer Hayden, Dion Henderson, James V. Herring, Clifton Thompson Hill, Hector Hill, Raymond Howell, Bill Hutson, May Howard Jackson, Oliver Jackson, Wilmer Jennings, George H. Benjamin Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Frederick D. Jones, Jr., Henry B. Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Joseph Kersey, Vivian Schuyler Key, Jacob Lawrence, Bertina B. Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Elba Lightfoot, Ed Loper, John Lutz, William McBride, Sr., Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Robert L. Neal, John B. Payne, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Nancy Prophet, Oliver Richard Reid, Earl Richardson, Marion Sampler, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Albert Alexander Smith, Teressa Staats, Thelma J. Streat, Henry O. Tanner, Dox Thrash, Laura Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Benjamin L. Wigfall, Ellis Wilson, John W. Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Terrance Yancey. 4to, cloth. FAYETTEVILLE (NC). Walton Arts Center. Images of America, African American Voices: Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Walker. January 9-March 27, 2004. 125 pp., 83 color plates, 1 b&w illus., plus color and b&w text photos, checklist of 64 works in all media, endnotes, bibliog. Text by Michael D. Harris. A very substantial collection. Artists include: Ron Adams, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Radcliffe Bailey, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Frank Bowling, Calvin Burnett, Nanette Carter, William S. Carter, Ed Clark, Kevin Cole, Robert Colescott, Tarrance D. Corbin, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Louis Delsarte, David Driskell, Edward J. Dwight, Michael Ellison, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, Luther Hampton, Margo Humphrey, Richard Hunt, Bill Hutson, Lois Mailou Jones, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Henri Linton, Juan Logan, Juan Logan, Whitfield Lovell, Alvin D. Loving, Clarence Morgan, Reginald McGhee, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, James Phillips, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Ray Saunders, John T. Scott, Charles Searles, Charles Sebree, A. J. Smith, Cedric Smith, Frank E. Smith, John H. Smith, Bill Taylor, Mildred J. Thompson, Dudley Vaccianna, James Vanderzee, Larry Walker, Joyce Wellman, William T. Williams. [Traveled to Tubman African American Museum, Macon, GA, July 23-September 26, 2004; Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC, June 11-September 17, 2005; Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, OH, September 15-November 11, 2006; and other venues.] Oblong 4to, pictorial wraps. First ed. FRYE, DANIEL J. African American Visual Artists: an annotated bibliography of educational resource materials. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001. xvi, 378 pp. Many misspellings of artists' names and a handful of white artists included. 8vo (23 cm.), cloth. HAMPTON (VA). Hampton University. The International Review of African American Art Vol. 17, no. 2 (1998). 1998. This issue contains: "William Pajaud and the Jazz Funeral Tradition;" article on Danny Simmons and the jazz hip-hop visual tradition empire by Cherilyn Wright; "Aaron Douglas at 100" by Aaronetta Pierce. "Imagining the Amistad;" William Tolliver 1951-2000 (obituary); "New Thoughts About That Old Black Magic" by Juliette Harris; "A Mother's Grief; an Artist's Response" by Leatha Mitchell; "A Publishing First!" by Harriet Kelley; "Art; Love and Sex In Black and White" by Stephanie Saft-Phelan; "Deborah Willis; Artist and Scholar" by Winston Kennedy. Artwork: William Pajaud (cover), Edouard Duval-Carrié, Allan Rohan Crite, Palmer Hayden, Claude Clark, Elizabeth Catlett, Leroy Clark, Vincent Smith, Antonio Carreno, Danny Simmons, Aaron Douglas, Colleen Coleman, Howardena Pindell, Ed Hamilton, Delphine Fawundu, Jeffery Henson Scales, William Tolliver, Pierre Legrain, Sylvia Snowden, Jacob Lawrence, Samella Lewis, Addison N. Scurlock, Ted Pontiflet. 4to, wraps. HAMPTON (VA). Hampton University Museum. Faithful Voices: Four Decades of African-American Art. October, 1998. Group exhibition of nine artists. Included: Claude Clark, Paul Keene, Reginald Gammon, James Brantley, Samella Lewis, Hughie Lee-Smith, Allan Rohan Crite, Calvin Burnett, and John Wilson. [Feature review by Jeanne Zeidler, The International Review of African American Art Vol. 15, no. 3 (1998):2-10.] 4to, wraps. HARLEY, RALPH L., JR. Checklist of Afro-American Art and Artists. Kent State University Libraries, 1970. In: Serif 7 (December 1970):3-63. What could have been the solid foundation of future scholarship is unfortunately marred by errors of all kinds and the inclusion of numerous white artists. All Black artists are cross-referenced. HARTFORD (CT). Wadsworth Atheneum. Fresh Faces. June 15, 2002-January 19, 2003. Group exhibition. Included: Augusta Savage, Laura Wheeling Waring, Hughie Lee-Smith, Alan Crite, Charles White, Coreen Simpson, and Dawoud Bey. HARTFORD (CT). Wadsworth Atheneum. Fresh Faces of Youth: African-American Art in Motion. November 4-30, 2007. Group exhibition of vintage photographs, advertising art, book and magazine illustrations, prints, paintings and sculpture from the late 1800s to the present that trace African American childhood through adolescence. Contemporary artists included: Charles White, Hughie Lee-Smith, Emma Amos, Allan Rohan Crite, Robert Tomlin, and Archibald Motley, Jr, et al. [Traveled to New Rochelle Public Library, New Rochelle, NY.] HAYDEN, ROBERT C. African-Americans in Boston: More than 350 Years. Boston, Boston Public Library, 1991. 187 pp., over 150 b&w photos and illus., index. Forward by Joyce Ferriabough. Cover design by Larry Johnson. 27 visual artists listed include: Scipio Moorhead, Edward M. Bannister, Edmonia Lewis, Meta Warrick Fuller, Allan Rohan Crite, Ellen Banks, John Barbour, Roger (Richard) Beatty, Calvin Burnett, Dana Chandler, Robin Chandler, Milton Derr, Paul Goodnight, James Guilford, Barbara Holt, Arnold Hurley, Larry Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Harriet Kennedy, J. Marcus Mitchell, James Reed, Gary Rickson, Rudy Robinson, Henry Washington, John Wilson, Richard Yarde. 8vo, wraps. Ivoryton (CT). ART Gallery Magazine. The ART Gallery Magazine: Afro-American issue (Vol. 11, no. 7, April 1968). 1968. Special Afro-American issue. Approx. 100 pp., b&w and color illus. Includes: Alonzo J. Aden, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Eric Anderson, Benny Andrews, William E. Artis, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Sheman Beck, Ed Bereal, John T. Biggers, Betty Blayton, Sylvester Britton, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, William S. Carter, Bernie Casey, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Edward Christmas, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Emilio Cruz, Mary Reed Daniel, Charles C. Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Avel DeKnight, Richard Dempsey, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, David C. Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Eugene Eda, William Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, John Farrar, Frederick C. Flemister, Meta Warrick Fuller, Reginald Gammon, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, Russell T. Gordon, Bernard Goss, Phillip Hampton, Marvin Harden, Romaine Harris, Eugene Hawkins, Palmer Hayden, Wilbur Haynie, Reginald Helm, James Herring, Leon Hicks, Vivian Hieber (?), Felrath Hines, Alvin Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Richard Hunt, A.B. Jackson, Hiram E. Jackson, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Frederic Jones (presumably Frederick D. Jones, Jr.), Lois Mailou Jones, Robert Edmond Jones, Jack Jordan, Sr., Louis Joseph Jordan, Ronald Joseph (as Joseph Ronald), Paul Keene, Joseph Kersey, Herman King, Sidney Kumalo, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Clifford Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, James Edward Lewis, Jr., Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Alvin Loving, William Majors, Howard Mallory, Jr., David Mann, Richard Mayhew, Anna McCullough, Geraldine McCullough, Charles W. McGee, Lloyd McNeill, Jr., Earl Miller, Norma Morgan, Jimmie Mosely, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Texeira Nash, Frank W. Neal, George E. Neal, Hayward L. Oubre, Jr., James D. Parks, Marion Perkins, Robert S. Pious, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Judson Powell, Ramon Price, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Noah Purifoy, Mavis Pusey, Robert D. Reid, John W. Rhoden, Haywood "Bill" Rivers, Henry C. Rollins, Mahler Ryder, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Jewel Simon, Merton D. Simpson, Van Slater, Carroll Sockwell, John Stevens, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Ralph M. Tate, Lawrence Taylor, John Torres, Jr., Alfred J. Tyler, Ruth G. Waddy, William Walker, Eugene Warburg, Howard N. Watson, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Jack H. White, Jack Whitten, Garrett Whyte, Sam William, Douglas R. Williams, Jose Williams, Todd Williams, Walter H. Williams, Stan Williamson, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, John W. Wilson, Roger Wilson, Hale A. Woodruff, James E. Woods, Roosevelt (Rip) Woods, Charles Yates, Hartwell Yeargans, et al. 8vo (24 cm.; 9 x 6 in.), wraps. LINCOLN (MA). DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. Painting in Boston: 1950-2000. September 14, 2000-February 26, 2001. 264 pp. exhib. cat., illus., chronol., biogs., bibliogs. Texts by Carl Belz, Nicholas Capasso, Rachel Rosenfield Lafo, John Stomberg, and Ann Wilson Lloyd. Large but by no means inclusive group exhibition of 75 paintings by 67 artists. Many fine and well-known painters are omitted both from the exhibition and from the chronology of key events. Only 6 African American artists included: Allan Rohan Crite, Dana Chandler, Kofi Kayiga, Laylah Ali, Ellen Gallagher, Richard Yarde. 4to, wraps. First ed. LITTLE ROCK (AR). Gallery 1, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Twentieth century African American art from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Walker. November 10-December 13, 1996. 39 pp. exhib. cat., color illus. Intro. by David C. Driskell; epilogue by Kevin Cole. Includes: Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Bob Blackburn, Nanette Carter, William Carter, Kevin Cole, Robert Colescott, Allan R. Crite, Sam Gilliam, John Wesley Hardrick, Margo Humphrey, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Al Loving, William E. Smith, Vincent Smith, Larry Walker, William T. Williams, John Wilson. 4to, wraps. LOCKE, ALAIN. Advance on the Art Front. 1939. In: Opportunity 17 (May 1939):132-36. Includes 29 artists. [Reprinted in In The Negro in Music and Art, ed.Lindsay Patterson. New York: Publishers Co.:239-245.] William Blackburn [presumably Robert Blackburn]. 4to (11 x 8 in.), wraps. LOCKE, ALAIN. Negro Art: Past and Present. Washington, DC: Associates in Negro Folk Education (Bronze Booklet No. 3), 1936. (vi) 122 pp., no illustrations, bibliography for each chapter. Covers the history of images of African Americans and art by African Americans through contemporary artists of the mid-1930s; the final chapter is on African art. Highly important early book on African American art by one of its most eminent cultural spokespersons. Includes: Charles Alston, William E. Artis, Henry Bannarn, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Samual Blount, Richard Lonsdale Brown, Samuel J. Brown, William A. Cooper, Samuel Countee, Allan Rohan Crite, William Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Gamaliel Derrick, Arthur Diggs, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, William Farrow, Elton Fax, Allan Freelon, Meta Vaux Fuller, Rex Goreleigh, John Hardrick, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, Vertis C. Hayes, Hanry Hudson, May Howard Jackson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Charles Keene, Edmonia Lewis, Lenwood Morris, Archibald Motley, Sara Murrell, Bruce Nugent, Robert Pious, James A. Porter, Georgette Seabrooke (Powell), Nancy E. Prophet, Dan Terry Reid, (Oliver) Richard Reid, Earle Richardson, Winfred Russell, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Albert A. Smith, Henry O. Tanner, John Urquhart, Grayson Walker, Eugene Warburg, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Hale Woodruff. [Also mentions an artist named Otto Farrill for whom there is no independent listing; the Serif and Cederholm listings are derived from Locke.] [Reprinteed by Arno Press 8vo, wraps. First ed. LOCKE, ALAIN, ed. The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of The Negro Artist and of The Negro Theme In Art. Washington, DC: Associates in Negro Folk education, 1940. 224 pp., leaf of plates, illus. (1 in color), selected bibliography. Reprinted by Hacker Books, 1968, 1968, 1971, 1979 (0878170138). 4to (31 cm.), green gilt-lettered cloth. First printing, December 1940. LONG, RICHARD, et al. African American Works on Paper from the Cochran Collection. Lagrange, 1991. 74 pp., 47 full-page illus. (6 in color), biogs. of 64 artists in this substantial collection. Intro. by Richard Long; texts by Judith Wilson, Camille Billops, Robert Blackburn. Includes 66 major 20th-century artists (including 16 women artists and a few less well-known artists): Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Trena Banks, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Betty Blayton, Moe Brooker, Vivian Browne, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Nanette Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Ed Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, John Dowell, Allan Edmunds, Melvin Edwards, Elton Fax, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, Maren Hassinger, Manuel Hughes, Richard Hunt, Wilmer Jennings, Lois Mailou Jones, Mohammad Khalil, Ronald Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, James Little, Whitfield Lovell, Al Loving, Richard Mayhew, Norma Morgan, Frank Neal, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Joe Overstreet, Howardena Pindell, Stephanie Pogue, Richard Powell, Mavis Pusey, Faith Ringgold, Aminah Robinson, Betye Saar, Al Smith, Walter Agustus Simon, Morgan Smith, Marvin Smith, Vincent Smith, Luther Stovall, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Jack Whitten, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Hartwell Yeargans. [16+ venue touring exhibition beginning at: Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange College, La Grange, GA, March 3-31, 1991; Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC; Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel, MI; Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, NC; Museum of the South, Mobile, AL; Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, GA; Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Danville, VA; Gadsden Museum of Art, Gadsden, AL; Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL; Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH; York County Museum of Art, Rock Hill, SC; Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL; Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art, Marietta, GA; Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN; Miami Univeristy Museum of Art, Oxford, OH; Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA; Jacksonville Museum of Art, Jacksonville, FL; William and Mary College, Williamsburg, VA; Northwest Visual Arts Center, Panama City, FL; Gertrude Herbert Institute, Augusta, GA; Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO; Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS; Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, AL; New Visions Gallery, Atlanta, GA.] 4to (28 x 22 cm.), wraps. First ed. LOS ANGELES (CA). California African American Museum. In the Hands of African American Collectors: The Personal Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey. September 28, 2006-March 11, 2007. 112 pp. exhib. cat., full-page color illus., biogs. of most artists. Curated by Evelyn Carter, Jill Moniz and Christopher D. Jimenez y West; texts by Gary Nash and Rita Roberts; reflections as collectors, Bernard and Shirley Kinsey. Group exhibition of work collected by the Kinseys in Los Angeles for the past 35 years. Includes some 90 paintings, sculptures, prints, books, documents, manuscripts and vintage photographs. Artists include: Ron Adams, Tina Allen, Charles Alston, Edward M. Bannister, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, John Biggers, Bob Blackburn, Grafton Tyler Brown, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Allan Rohan Crite, Bill Dallas, Robert S. Duncanson, Samuel L. Dunson Jr., Ed Dwight, Sam Gilliam, Jonathan Green, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Artis Lane, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Lionel Lofton, Richard Mayhew, William Pajaud, James Porter, Edward Pratt, Sue Jane Mitchell Smock, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Matthew Thomas, William Tolliver, James Lesesne Wells. [Traveled to: South Side Community Art Center, Chicago, July 13, 2007-March 2, 2008; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, May 1-July 20, 2008.] 4to (28 cm.), wraps. MEYER, GEORGE H., ed. Folk Artists Biographical Index. Detroit: Gale Research, in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1987. Artist entries include name, birth/death information, period and location of activity, ethnicity, type of work, museum collections, and sources. Includes some very highly educated art school graduates, craft professionals, along with the more obvious collection of "folk artists." The following artists are included: Jesse Aaron, Leroy Almon, Steve Ashby, Sampson Augustus, Baddler, Leslie Bollinger, Bruce Brice, William Henry Brown, John P. Burr, J. C. "Jack" Burris (puppetmaker), David Butler, J. G. Chaplin, Irene Clark, Leon "Peck" Clark, Bea Coaxum, Clark Coe, William Craft, Harry Crane, Cleo Crawford, Allan Rohan Crite (an absurd entry in this context), Dave, Alfred "Shoe" Davis, Ulysses Davis, Virgil Davis, William Dawson, Thomas Day, Ellen Dicus, William H. Dorsey, Robert M. Douglass Jr., Sam Doyle, William Edmondson [as Edmonson], Emmaline, Minnie Evans, Josephus Farmer, Leonard Fields, Marvin Finn, Thomas Jefferson Flanagan, Walter Flax, Mary Lou Foreman, Regina Foreman, Ezekiel Gibbs, William O. Golding, Henry Gudgell, James Hampton [listed as John (James) Hampton], Harley, Robert Hemp, G. W. Hobbs [now known to be white], Clementine Hunter, Job, Joe, Joshua Johnson, Frank Jones, Gerritt Loguen, Rance "Bone" Maddov, Jr., Ralph Middleton, Howard Miller, Mahulda Mize, Scipio Moorhead, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Emma Lee Moss, Inez Nathaniel, Ned, Leslie J. Payne, Alexander Pickhil, Elijah Pierce, Horace Pippin, Harriet Powers, Nelson Primus, "Rhenae", Juanita Rogers, William Rogers, Nellie Mae Rowe, Sarah "Old Aunt Sarah" [embroiderer], Peter Simmons, Philip Simmons, Jewel Simon, William Simpson, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Sutton [Sultan Rogers], Jessie Telfair, James "Son Ford" Thomas, Mose Tolliver, Lucinda Toomer, Bill Traylor, Vidal, Pecolia Warner, James Washington, George White, Lizzie Wilkerson, George Williams [as William], Jeff Williams, Luster Willis, A. B. Wilson, Joseph E. Yoakum. MONTCLAIR (NJ). Montclair Art Museum. Evolving Identities: Figurative Work from the 19th Century to Now. March 21-August 1, 2004. Group exhibition drawn mostly from the permanent collection. Curated by Gail Stavitsky and Twig Johnson. Included: Allan Rohan Crite, Robert Colescott, Janet Taylor Pickett, Juan Sanchez, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems. NASHVILLE (TN). Fisk University and Crystal Britton Gallery, Atlanta. Allan Rohan Crite / Susan Gillian Thompson. 1982. 8 pp., 10 b&w illus., checklist of 48 works, bibliog., exhibs., colls. Text by Lowery S. Sims. Oblong 4to, pictorial stapled wraps. NASHVILLE (TN). Fisk University Art Gallery. The Afro-American Collection, Fisk University. 1976. 64 pp. exhib. cat., illus., brief biogs., checklist of works by 63 artists in the Fisk University Collection as of 1976. Pref. by Robert L. Hall; text by David C. Driskell. Artists include: Skunder Boghossian, Ellen Bond, Jacqueline Bontemps, Michael Borders, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Samuel Countee, Ralph Arnold, William Artis, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, G. Caliman Coxe, Allan Crite, Dante (Donald Graham), Jeff Donaldson, Lilian Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, John Dowell, David Driskell, Elton Fax, Wilhelmina Godfrey [as Godfrey Wilhelmina], Clementine Hunter, Louise Jefferson, Adrienne Jenkins, Wilmer Jennings, Palmer Hayden, Earl J. Hooks, Manuel Hughes, Ben Jones, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Sam Middleton, James Miles, Keith Morrison, Roderick Owens, James Phillips, Stephanie Pogue, James Porter, Martin Puryear, Gregory Ridley, Leo Robinson, William E. Scott, John Scott, Albert A. Smith, Vincent Smith, David Stephens, Nelson Stevens, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Bill Traylor, Alma Thomas, Mildred Thompson, James Wells, Charles White, Benjamin Wigfall, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, Viola Wood, Hale Woodruff and Charles Young. 4to (28 cm.), wraps. NASHVILLE (TN). Fisk University, Department of Art. Amistad II: Afro-American Art. 1975. 92 pp. exhib. cat., 74 b&w illus., checklist of 79 works by 53 African American artists. Text by David C. Driskell, self-interview by Allan M. Gordon, text on Amistad incident by Grant Spradling. Artists include: Benny Andrews, William Artis, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Michael Borders, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Henry O. Tanner, Claude Clark, Sr., Claude Lockhart Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Bing Davis, Philip Randolph Dotson, Aaron Douglas, John Dowell, David Driskell, William Edmondson, Palmer Hayden, Earl Hooks, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnson, Lawrence Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Ted Jones, David McDonald, Sam Middleton, Keith Morrison, Archibald Motley, James Porter, Gregory Ridley, Raymond Saunders, Charles Sebree, Albert Alexander Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Bill Taylor, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, and others. 4to (29 cm.), wraps. First ed. NEW DELHI [India]. United Asia. United Asia: International Magazine of Asian Affairs Vol. V, no. 3 (June 1953). 1953. xvi, 76 pp. Special issue focus: Symposium on the American Negro. Contributors include Charles S Johnson, Cedric Dover, Sterling Brown, John Hope Franklin (From Slavery to Freedom), W E B Du Bois, Hugh and Mabel Smythe, H. Lewis (The Negro Scene - Facts and Figures), James Ivy (The Character of Negro Opinion); Langston Hughes (Poems -- Old and New and Twelve Favourite Poems), Alain Locke (The Negro in the Arts), Mozell Hill (Modern Negro Literature); George V. Allen; a basic bibliography of writings by black authors; visual artists surveyed (7 b&w illus.) include: John Rhoden, Richmond Barthé, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert Blackburn, Aaron Douglas, Allan Crite, and Edwin A Harleston. 4to, wraps. NEW HAVEN (CT). Institute of Sacred Music. Visual Exegesis: Religious Images by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert E. Steele Art Collection. April 2-25, 2008. Exhib. cat., illus. Group exhibition. Benny Andrews, John T. Biggers, Allan Rohan Crite, David C. Driskell, Annette Fortt, Michael Harris, Curlee Holton, Margo Humphrey, Reginald Jackson, Paul Keene, Jacob Lawrence, Grace Matthews, Valerie Maynard, Jefferson Pinder, Stephanie Pogue, Faith Ringgold, and John T. Scott. [Traveled in part (22 works by 14 artists) to: Dadian Gallery, Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC, October 13-December 12, 2008.] NEW ORLEANS (LA). Amistad Research Center and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Beyond the Blues: Reflections of Africa America in the Fine Arts Collection of the Amistad Research Center. April 11-July 11, 2010. 188 pp., 316 illus. (302 in color). This publication serves both as a catalogue of the exhibition and also as documentation of the majority of works in the Amistad's collection. Foreword by David C. Driskell; texts by curator Margaret Rose Vendryes, Lowery Stokes Sims, Michael D. Harris, and Renee Ater. See exhibition checklist: http://www.amistadresearchcenter.org/beyondtheblues/works.html. 4to, boards. Ed. of 1000. NEW ORLEANS (LA). Stella Jones Gallery. Ebony soliloquy: a five year retrospective (1996-2001). 2001. 47 pp. exhib. cat., illus. (mostly color.) Preface by Samella Lewis. Group exhibition. Included: Richard Barthé, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Herbert Gentry, Loïs Mailou Jones, Phoebe Beasley, Yvonne Edwards-Tucker, Artis Lane, Evangeline "EJ" Montgomery, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Ann Tanksley, Louis Delsarte, Malaika Favorite, Randall Henry, Dennis Paul Williams, Tayo Adenaike, El Anatsui, Antonio Carreño, LeRoy Clarke, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Wosene Kosrof, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Ernest Crichlow, Reginald Gammon, Richard Hunt, Samella Lewis, Richard Mayhew, William "Bill" Pajaud, Jr., Gordon Parks, Sr., Ron Adams, Benny Andrews, Allan Rohan Crite, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Francisco Mora, James Amos Porter, Vincent Smith. 4to (28 cm.), wraps. NEW YORK (NY). City College, CUNY. The Evolution of Afro-American Artists; 1800-1950. 1967. 70 pp., 47 full-page b&w illus., biogs. and checklist of works exhibited. Co-curated by Romare Bearden and Carroll Greene, Jr. Includes: 6 works of African heritage art and 54 artists: Joshua Johnson (as Johnston), Edward M. Bannister, Edmonia Lewis, Robert S. Duncanson, William Simpson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Meta Warrick Fuller, Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barthé, Palmer Hayden, Hale Woodruff, Archibald Motley, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Albert Smith, James A. Porter, Allan Rohan Crite, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, O. Richard Reid, Laura Waring, William E. Braxton, James L. Wells, Edwin A. Harleston, Lois Mailou Jones, Hughie Lee-Smith, Fred Flemister, John T. Biggers, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Charles White, John Wilson, Elizabeth Catlett, William Artis, William Edmondson (as Edmonson), Horace Pippin, Earle Richardson (as Earl), Claude Clark, Ernest Crichlow, Ellis Wilson, Robert Blackburn, Robert S. Pious, Norman Lewis, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Selma Burke, Eldzier Cortor, Ronald Joseph, Humbert Howard, Heywood Rivers, Richard Mayhew, Merton D. Simpson, and John Farrar. NEW YORK (NY). Downtown Gallery. American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries. December 9, 1941-January 3, 1942. Exhib. cat. The first show of African American art held at a mainstream commercial gallery, the exhibition, curated by gallery owner Edith Halpert, was sponsored by a committee of prominent white patrons including Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Archibald MacLeish, A. Philip Randolph, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Among its aims were to raise money for the Negro Art Fund, to promote museum acquisitions of work by Black artists, and to encourage galleries to represent the living participants. In addition to providing its facilities, the Downtown Gallery donated all sales commissions to the Negro Art Fund and added Jacob Lawrence to its roster of artists at this time. Artists included: 19th century: Edward Bannister, Robert Duncanson, Edwin Harleston, William H. Simpson, Henry O. Tanner; 20th century: Charles Alston, Henry Avery, Romare Bearden, Samuel J. Brown, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Felton Coleman, Eldzier Cortor, Cleo Crawford, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Charles Davis, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Palmer Hayden, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ron Joseph, Paul Keene, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Elba Lightfoot, Archibald Motley, Frederick Perry, Horace Pippin, Charles Sebree, George N. Victory, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff. Printmakers: Robert Blackburn, John Borican, Claude Clarke, Wilmer Jennings, Bryant Pringle, Raymond Steth, Dox Thrash, James L. Wells. Sculptors: William Artis, Richmond Barthé, Selma Burke, William Edmondson, Sargent Johnson, Martha Manning, Augusta Savage, John Henry Smith. [See copy of catalogue in National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian, vertical files.] [Listed in Magazine of Art 34 (Nov. 1941):497 with incorrect dates. Review in Art Digest, December 15, 1941, praises the show, but in exceedingly demeaning racist language: "The American Negro has at last spoken in art -- firmly and distinctively, his voice having as definite an intonation with colors as his soul has in singing and dancing. His choice of dazzling colors is just as typical as his exaggerated sense of humor, his strut and guffaw; his concern with the burdened just as characteristic as his pleading songs to his Maker." NEW YORK (NY). Ebony Editors. Ebony Handbook. Chicago: Johnson Publisnt Company Pub., 1974. Of historical interest only. Includes over 150 artists, more than double the number who were included in Ebony's Negro Handbook of 1966. Nonetheless, this represents a very limited selection compared with the St. Louis Index (1972) and Cederholm (1973) which had been published in the two years immediately preceeding this revision. Includes: Charles Alston, Eileen Anderson, Ralph Arnold, William E. Artis, Kwasi Asante, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Sherman Beck, Ben Bey, Michelle C. Bey, John T. Biggers, Gloria Bohanon, Lorraine Bolton, Shirley Bolton, Elmer Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Herbert Bruce, Joan Bryant, Selma Burke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Nathaniel Bustion, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Benjamin Clark, Claude Clark, Irene V. Clark, Floyd Coleman, Eldzier Cortor, Samuel Countee, G. C. Coxe, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Alonzo J. Davis, Charles C. Dawson, Richard Dempsey, J. Brooks Dendy, Jeff Donaldson, Harold S. Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, Annette Ensley, Marion Epting, P. Fernand (listed only in this publication), Frederick C. Flemister, Ausbra Ford, Leroy Foster, Meta Vaux Fuller, Rex Goreleigh, Joseph E. Grey, J. Eugene Grigsby, John W. Hardrick, Oliver Harrington, Frank Hayden, Palmer Hayden, Vertis C. Hayes, Eselean Henderson, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Kenneth Howard (in this publication only), Richard Hughes, Richard Hunt, J.D. Jackson, Wilmer Jennings, Lester L. Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Lawrence Jones, Lois Maillou Jones, Mark Jones, Charles Keck, James E. Kennedy, Joseph Kersey, Henri Umbaji King, Omar Lama, Jacob Lawrence, Clifford Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Leon Leonard, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Edward L. Loper, Anderson Macklin, William Majors, Stephen Mayo, Geraldine McCullough, Eva Hamlin Miller, Rosetta Dotson Minner, Corinne Mitchell, James Mitchell, Norma Morgan, Jimmie Mosely, Archibald J. Motley, Dindga McCannon, David Normand, Hayward Oubre, Sandra Peck, Marion Perkins, Alvin Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Georgette Seabrooke Powell, Leo Twiggs, Al Tyler, Anna Tyler, Steve Walker, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Kenneth V. Young, et al. New York (NY). Essie Green Galleries. The Artist Emerging (Their Early Years). April 17-May 22, 2010. Group exhibition. Early work by Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, John T. Biggers, Allan Rohan Crite, William McKnight Farrow, Ramon Gabriel, Sam Gilliam, John Wesley Hardrick, Norman Lewis, Charles Sebree and Henry Ossawa Tanner. NEW YORK (NY). Harmon Foundation / International House. Exhibit of Fine Arts by American Negro Artists. January 7-19, 1930. Unpag. (16 pp.) exhib. cat.; cover illus. of Self-Portrait painting by William H. Johnson. Traveling exhibition shown in 16 U.S. cities, 1930-31. [Review: George E. Haynes, ""Negro Achievement as Shown by Harmon Awards," Southern Workman 59 (April 1930):113-121.] 8vo (22 cm.), pictorial wraps. NEW YORK (NY). Harmon Foundation at the Art Center. Exhibition of productions by Negro artists: presented by the Harmon Foundation at the Art Center. February 20-March 4, 1933. 55 pp. exhib. cat., 36 illus., checklist of 107 works. Text "The Negro Takes His Place in American Art" by Alain Locke; unsigned essay, "News Happenings in the Field of Negro Art;" "A Forecast" by Howard Giles; list of 1933 award winners and Prize winner in previous exhibitions, 1926-1930, plus notes on 125 "Negro artists whose works have been shown in Harmon Foundation Exhibitions." Exhibited artists include: Palmer Hayden (Winner, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Prize), James Lesesne Wells (bronze medal for most representative work in black and white.) and Charles J., Charles Henry Anderson, Frederick Cornelius Alston, Pastor Argudin y Pedroso, William Artis, George Edward Bailey, Mike Bannarn, Richmond Barthé, Humphreys Becket, James Bland, Samuel Ellis Blount, David P. Boyd, Cloyd L. Boykin, Edward J. Brandford, William E. Braxton, Daisy Brooks, Mabel Brooks, Samuel Joseph Worthington Brown, Eugene Burkes, William A. Cooper, Samuel A. Countee, Allan Crite, Charles C. Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Arthur Diggs, Frank J. Dillon, Lilian Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Ferdinand W. Ellington, William Farrow, Elton Fax, Allan R. Freelon, Meta Vaux Fuller, Otis Galbreath, William Goss, William E. Grant, Ruth Gray, Constance Grayson, John Hailstalk, John W. Hardrick, Edwin A. Harleston, John Taylor Harris, Palmer C. Hayden, Anzola D. Laird Hegomin, James V. Herring, Clifton Hill, Jesse Mae Housley, May Howard Jackson, J. Antonio Jarvis, Cornelius W. Johnson, George H. Benjamin Johnson, Gertrude Johnson, Gladys L. Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Archie Jones, Henry Bozeman Jones, Vivian Key, Benjamin Kitchin, Richard W. Lindsey, Romeyn Van Vleck Lippmann, Howard H. Mackey, Harold E. Marshall, Effie Mason, Helen Mason, Samuel E. MacAlpine, Edward T. McDowell, Susie McIver, C. G. McKenzie, Elenor McLaren, Archibald J. Motley, Richard B. Nugent, Allison Oglesby, Maude Owens, Suzanne Ogunjami Wilson (as Suzanna Ogunjami), Kenneth R. O'Neal, Elenor E. Paul, John Phillipis, Philip Leo Pierre, Robert S. Pious, Celestine Gustava Johnson Pope, James Porter, Elizabeth Prophet, Oliver Reid, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Charles A. Robinson, Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Albert A. Smith, Walter W. Smith, Charles Spears, Jr., Teressa Staats, Jesse Stubbs, Mary Lee Tate, Ulysses S. Tayes, Daniel Tillman, John E. Toodles, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Simeon Sir Henry Williams, Ellis Wilson, Arthur Glenn Winslow, Hale Woodruff, et al. [Review: Rose Henderson, "Negro Artists In the Fifth Harmon Exhibition," The Southern Workman 62 (April 1933):175-181.] 8vo (22 cm.), stapled wraps. Cover illus. by James Porter; back cover illus. by Back cover illus. Head of a Girl by William Ellisworth Artis. NEW YORK (NY). Harmon Foundation at the Art Center. Exhibition of the Work of Negro Artists presented by the Harmon Foundation at the Art Center. February 16-28, 1931. 47 pp. exhib. cat., 34 b&w illus., checklist of 123 works by more than fifty artists. Illustrations include: "Chester" by Sargent Claude Johnson (front cover); . back cover illus. "The Old Servant" by Edwin Augustus Harleston. Texts: "Some Historical Reflections" by A. A. Schomburg and "The African Legacy and the Negro Artist" by Alain Locke; "Art and the Public Library" by Ernestine Rose; "A university Art Service" by James V. Herring. Artists include: James Latimer Allen, Frederick Alston, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, James Bland, Cloyd L. Boykin, Edward J. Brandford, Eugene A. Burkes, William A. Cooper, Allan Rohan Crite, Lilian A. Dorsey, Robert S. Duncanson, William M. Farrow, Allan R. Freelon, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, King Daniel Ganaway, William T. Goss, William E. Grant, John Wesley Hardrick, Edwin A. Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Anzola D. Laird Hegomin, May Howard Jackson, Malvin G. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Vivian S. Key, Benjamin S. Kitchin, Edward T. McDowell, Richard W. Lindsey, Archibald J. Motley, Richard Nugent, Allison L. Oglesby, Philip Leo Pierre, Robert S. Pious (5 paintings), Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Dan Terry Reid, Donald Redvers Reid, D. Richard Reid, J. H. D. Robinson, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Albert A. Smith, Mary Lee Tate, Daniel Norman Tillman, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Richard Milby Williams, Arthur Glenn Winslow, Hale Woodruff, et al. 8vo (22 cm.), tan wraps. Front cover illus. by Sargent Johnson. NEW YORK (NY). Harmon Foundation in cooperation with the Delphic Studios. Negro Artists. An Illustrated Review of Their Achievements. April 22-May 4, 1935. 59 (1) pp. exhib. cat., 39 b&w illus. and photographs. Contains an important 18 page artist directory with addresses, brief bios and exhibition info. on 113 artists. Illustrations of work by Richmond Barthé, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, Lawrence Edelin, Samuel Joseph Brown, Suzanne Ogunjami Wilson (as Suzanna Ogunjami), Leslie Garland Bowling, Aaron Douglas, Palmer Hayden, Wilmer Jennings; news notes on exhibitions by many others. The last and largest of the blockbuster Harmon Foundation exhibitions of the 1930s. Included roughly 150 artists in all media. The Malvin Gray Johnson Memorial section included the equivalent of a large solo exhibition: 35 oils and 18 watercolors; 21 works by Barthé and Johnson. [Reprint editions issued by Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press, 1971 and by Ayer Co., Salem, NH, 1991.] 8vo (23 cm.), stapled wraps. Cover illus. by Malvin Gray Johnson. NEW YORK (NY). Kenkeleba House. Unbroken Circle: Exhibition of African American Artists of the 1930's and 1940's. 1986. 36 pp., 55 b&w illus., checklist of work by 56 artists (including 10 women artists). Intro. Corinne Jennings; text by David C. Driskell, and beautiful memoir by curator / artist Vincent D. Smith. Well-chosen examples of each artist's work. Includes: Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Robert Blackburn, William Braxton, Selma Burke, Samuel J. Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Reba Dickerson-Hill, Aaron Douglas, Elton Fax, Charlotte White Franklin, Meta Fuller, Herbert Gentry, Rex Goreleigh, Palmer Hayden, Humbert L. Howard, May Howard Jackson, Wilmer A. Jennings, Malvin G. Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Paul Keene, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, James Lewis, Norman Lewis, Joan Maynard, Archibald Motley, Delilah Pierce, Robert Pious, Georgette Powell, Daniel Pressley, Donald Reid, John Rhoden, Charles Sebree, Thomas Sills, Alma Thomas, Dox Thrash, Masood A. Warren, James Wells, Charles White, Walter Williams, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff. Text includes discussion of some additional artists: Robert Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, Henry Tanner, Valerie Maynard, James Porter. 4to, stapled wraps. First ed. NEW YORK (NY). Metropolitan Museum of Art. African-American Artists, 1929-1945: Prints, Drawings and Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. 91 pp., 60 b&w illus., 7 color plates, checklist of 47 works, notes. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 15-July 6, 2003. The collection is discussed topically rather than in chronological order: Cultural Heritage, North, South, Religion, Labor, Recreation, War. Texts by Lisa Mintz Messinger, Lisa Gail Collins and Rachel Mustalish ("Printmaking Techniques of the WPA Printmakers.") Artists include: Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Bob Blackburn, Elmer W. Brown, Samuel Joseph Brown, Calvin Burnett, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Joseph Delaney, Palmer Hayden, Carl G. Hill, Louise E. Jefferson, Wilmer Jennings, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Ronald Joseph, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Horace Pippin, David Ross, Charles Sallee, Albert A. Smith, William E. Smith, Raymond Steth, Dox Thrash, Bill Traylor, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff. 4to (28 cm.; 10.8 x 8.4 in.), laminated pictorial self-wraps. First ed. NEW YORK (NY). Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. African American Art, 20th century Masterworks, VI. January 14-March 6, 1999. 60 pp., 41 color plates, 36 b&w illus. Foreword by Michael Rosenfeld. Artists include: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Harold Cousins, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Sam Gilliam, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Betye Saar, William Edouard Scott, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Bob Thompson, Bill Traylor, James VanDerZee, Charles White and Hale Woodruff. [Traveled to Flint Institute of Art, Flint, MI.] 8vo (23 cm.; 8.5 x 6 in.), pictorial stiff wraps. First ed. NEW YORK (NY). Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. African-American Art: 20th Century Masterworks. November 18-February 12, 1994. 32 pp., 29 color illus. Text by Beryl Wright. Work by 23 artists: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Alan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Archibald Motley, Jr., Hayward Oubré, Augusta Savage, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Bob Thompson, Charles White, Hale Woodruff. Sq. 8vo (8.5 x 6 in.), pictorial stiff wraps. First ed. NEW YORK (NY). Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. Building Community: The African American Scene. January 13-March 11, 2006. 28 pp. exhib. cat., color illus. 19 artists included: Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Robert Duncanson, Allan Freelon, Palmer Hayden, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Hughie Lee-Smith, Horace Pippin, William Edouard Scott, Henry Ossawa Tanner, James Vanderzee, Hale Woodruff. Poem by Richard Wright "We of the Streets." 12mo (16 cm.), card wraps. NEW YORK (NY). Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. Exultations: African American Art: 20th century Masterworks, II. February 1-April 8, 1995. 48 pp., 45 color plates, 3 b&w illus., exhib. checklist of 51 works by 29 artists. Text by Richard J. Powell. Includes: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Ernie Barnes, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Norman Cousins, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Sam Gilliam, Palmer Hayden, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Horace Pippin, Robert Pious, Prentice H. Polk, James A. Porter, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, Henry O. Tanner, Bob Thompson, James VanDerZee, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, and Hale Woodruff. [Traveled to Flint Art Institute, Flint, MI.] Sq. 8vo (23 cm.; 8.5 x 6 in.), pictorial stiff wraps. First ed. NEW YORK (NY). Museum of Modern Art. New Horizons in American Art. September 16-October 12, 1936. 171 pp., illus. Intro. by Holger Cahill, the director of the Federal Art Project. Exhibition of work done during the preceding year under the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. A few African American artists included: Charles Alston, Samuel J. Brown, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles Sebree. 8vo (26 cm.), blue cloth, d.j. First ed. of 3000. NEW YORK (NY). National Urban League. Opportunity, Journal of Negro Life 9, no. 5 (May 1931). 1931. 32 pp. Cover drawing in green, black and white by E. Simms Campbell; drawing by Allan Rohan Crite. 4to (11 x 8 in.), wraps. NEW YORK (NY). Sacks Fine Art, Inc. African American Artists of the Harlem Renaissance period and later. ca. 1992. 24 pp. exhibition catalogue, b&w illus., 1 color plate, brief biogs. of artists. Intro. by Beverly Sacks. Includes: Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Minnie Evans, John Hardrick, Palmer Hayden, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis (The Group, gouache on masonite, 8 x 4.5 in.), Edward Loper, Bernie Robynson (3 brush and ink drawings), Charles Sebree, Bob Thompson, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff. Small 4to, wraps. NEW YORK (NY). Sacks Fine Art, Inc. African American Artists Then and Now. 1993. Unpag. sale catalogue, illus. A greatly expanded roster over the previous year's offering including several women artists for the first time. Listing of New York. Artists currently available includes: Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, Alan Rohan Crite, Eldzier Cortor, Roy DeCarava, Joseph Delaney, Beauford Delaney, John Wesley Hardrick, Palmer Hayden, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, Allen Stringfellow, Henry O. Tanner, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Ellis Wilson, Hale Woodruff, et al. NEW YORK (NY). Society of Illustrators, Inc. My Soul Looks Back and Wonders: The Black Experience in Illustration, 1773-2010. September, 2010. Group exhibition. Includes: Scipio Moorhead, Patrick Reason, Henry Jackson Lewis; John Henry Adams, Gil Ashby, Pedro Bell, Thomas Blackshear, Barbara H. Bond, Colin Bootman, Alexander Bostic, Bradford Brown, Elbrite Brown, Ashley Bryan, Yvonne Buchanan, Carole Byard, Elmer Simms Campbell, Mal Cann, Gregory Christie, Bryan Collier, Floyd Cooper, Nina Crewes, Donald Crews, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Pat Cummings, Frank Dillon, Aaron Douglas, Shane Evans, Elton Fax, Tom Feelings, George Ford, Jan Gilchrist, Cheryl Hanna, Oliver Harrington, James Hoston, Leonard Jenkins, Joel Peter Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Roy E. LaGrone, E. B. Lewis, Henry Jackson Lewis, Charles Lilly, Overton Loyd, Aaron McGruder, Don Miller, Christopher Myers, Kadir Nelson, Jackie Ormes, Gerald Purnell, Fred Pfeiffer, Robyn Phillips-Pendleton, Jerry Pinkney, Ivan Powell, James E. Ransome, Anna Rich, Faith Ringgold, Aminah Brenda Robinson, Reynold Ruffins, Synthia St. James, Albert Alexander Smith, Javaka Steptoe, John Lewis Steptoe, Jean Pierre Targete, Don Tate, Toni Taylor, Mozelle Thompson, Nancy Tolson, Ezra Tucker, Eric Velasquez, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Eric Wilkerson, Hilda Rue Wilkerson, Cornelius Van Wright. NEW YORK (NY). Studio Museum in Harlem. Ritual and Myth: A Survey of African American Art. June 20-November 1, 1982. 52 pp., 8 color plates (including cover), 18 b&w illus., checklist of 70 works, bibliog. Intro. David C. Driskell; text by Leslie King Hammond. Includes 9 African sculptures; 11 early works by Edmonia Lewis, Meta Warrick Fuller, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Richmond Barthé, Aaron Douglas, and Allan Rohan Crite; 15 works by seven artists grouped as Intuitives and Visionaries: Harriet Powers, William H. Johnson, Horace Pippin, Elijah Pierce, Nellie Mae Rowe, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Elizabeth Caldwell Scott; six Caribbean artists: Wifredo Lam, Leroy Clarke, Luis Flores, Murat Brierre, Edgar Brierre, Georges Liautaud; and 28 works by fourteen contemporary African American artists under the category Contemporary Mythmakers: Melvin Edwards, Romare Bearden, Beverly Buchanan, Houston Conwill, Eldzier Cortor, Hughie Lee Smith, Lorenzo Pace, Noah Jemisin, Joyce Scott, Betye Saar, Ben Jones, George Smith, Ademola Olugebefola, Edgar H. Sorrells-Adewale. Sq. 8vo (21 cm.), pictorial stapled wraps. First ed. NEWARK (DE). University Gallery, University of Delaware. Uncommon Bonds: Expressing African American Identity. January 15-March 7, 1999. 17 artists including 7 African American artists: James VanderZee, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Allan Rohan Crite, Lonnie Holley, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson. Exhibition mounted in conjunction with a six-hour public television series entitled, "I'll Make Me a World," produced by Blackside, Inc. NEWARK (NJ). Newark Museum. Alone in a Crowd: Prints of the 1930s-40s by African-American Artists. Collection Reba and Dave Williams. December 10, 1992-February 28, 1993. 58 pp. exhib. cat., 35 illus. (8 in color), exhib. checklist of 105 prints with biogs. of all artists by Diane Cochrane, index. Excellent texts by Dougherty, Lowery S. Sims, Leslie King Hammond on Black Printmakers and the W.P.A., and Reba and Dave Williams. Includes: Charles Alston, John Biggers, Robert Blackburn, Elmer W. Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Jr., Hilda Wilkinson Brown, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Charles C. Dawson, Aaron Douglas, Carl Hill, Louise Jefferson, Wilmer Jennings, William H. Johnson, Sargent Johnson, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lawrence Arthur Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Ronald Joseph, Hughie Lee-Smith, James E. Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Richard W. Lindsey, William McBride, Hayward Oubré, Georgette Seabrooke Powell, David Ross, Charles Sallee, William E. Smith, Raymond Steth, Dox Thrash, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Clarence Williams, Hale Woodruff, John Wilson. [Traveled to 17 other locations.] Oblong 4to (23 x 28 cm.; 9 x 11 in.), wraps. First ed. NEWARK (NJ). Newark Museum. Black Artists: Two Generations. May 13-September 6, 1971. 36 pp. exhib. catalogue listing 115 works by 59 artists (only 10 women artists included), 58 b&w illus. plus b&w cover design by Dmitri Wright; addresses for approx. 30 artists. Text by Samuel C. Miller; poem by Paul Waters. Important record of one of the major African American exhibitions of the early 1970s. Includes: Charles Axt, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton, Samuel Brown, Ernest Crichlow, Norma Criss, Allan Rohan Crite, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, William Edmondson, Barbara Fudge, John Fudge, James Green, Palmer Hayden, Eddie Holmes, Raymond Hunt, Bill Hutson, Zell Ingram, Gerald Jackson, Bob James, Florian Jenkins, Wilmer Jennings, Ben Johnson, Jeanne Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Leon Jones, Robert Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Edward Loper, Frank Marshall, Marietta (Betty) Mayes, Gordon Mayes, Richard Mayhew, Don Miller, Julia Miller, Joe Overstreet, Horace Pippin, Rev. Arthur Roach, Junius Redwood, Robert Reid, Haywood Bill Rivers, Bernard Séjourne, Christopher Shelton, Margaret Slade (Kelley), George Smith, Vincent Smith, Thelma Johnson Streat, Dox Thrash, Paul Waters, Charles White, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff, and Dmitiri Wright. Small 4to (26 cm.), pictorial stapled card wraps. First ed. NORFOLK (VA). Museum of Arts and Sciences. Contemporary Painting: 32 Americans. May 1-22, 1949. Unpag. (11 pp.) exhib. cat., no illus., biogs. of artists. Includes: Frank Alston, Romare Bearden, Ashley Bryan, Eldzier Cortor, Allen R. Crite, Richard W. Dempsey, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Edward L. Loper, Frank Neal, James A. Porter, Charles Sebree, Charles White, Ellis Wilson and Hale Woodruff. Exhibition of works fromt the IBM Collection. 8vo (22 cm.), stapled wraps. OAKLAND (CA). Thelma Harris Gallery. 8th Annual White Linen Nights. 2007. Group exhibition. OTFINOSKI, STEVEN. African Americans in the Visual Arts. New York: Facts on File, 2003. x, 262 pp., 50 b&w photos of some artists, brief 2-page bibliog., index. Part of the A to Z of African Americans series. Lists over 170 visual artists (including 18 photographers) and 22 filmmakers with brief biographies and token bibliog. for each. An erratic selection, far less complete than the St. James Guide to Black Artists, and inexplicably leaving out over 250 artists of obvious historic importance (for ex.: Edwin A. Harleston, Grafton Tyler Brown, Charles Ethan Porter, Wadsworth Jarrell, John Outterbridge, Noah Purifoy, William Majors, Camille Billops, Whitfield Lovell, Al Loving, Ed Clark, John T. Scott, Maren Hassinger, Lorraine O'Grady, Winnie Owens-Hart, Adrienne Hoard, Oliver Jackson, Frederick Eversley, Glenn Ligon, Sam Middleton, Ed Hamilton, Pat Ward Williams, etc. and omitting a generation of well-established contemporary artists who emerged during the late 70s-90s. [Note: a newly revised edition of 2012 (ten pages longer) has not rendered it a worthy reference work on this topic.] 8vo (25 com), laminated papered boards. PAINTER, NELL IRVIN. Creating Black Americans: African American History and its Meanings 1619 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. xvi, 458 pp., 148 illus. (110 in color), 4 maps, bibliog., index. Valuable for its images. A historical and cultural narrative that stretches from Africa to hip-hop with unusual attention paid to visual work. However, Painter is a historian not an art historian and therefore deals with the art in summary fashion without discussion of its layered imagery. Artists named include: Sylvia Abernathy, Tina Allen, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, Xenobia Bailey, James Presley Ball, Edward M. Bannister, Amiri Baraka (as writer), Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, C. M. Battey, Romare Bearden, Arthur P. Bedou, John T. Biggers, Camille Billops, Carroll Parrott Blue, Leslie Bolling, Chakaia Booker, Cloyd Boykin, Kay Brown, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Dana Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Chris Clark, Claude Clarke, Houston Conwill, Brett Cook-Dizney, Allan Rohan Crite, Willis "Bing" Davis, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, David C. Driskell, Robert S. Duncanson, Melvin Edwards, Tom Feelings, Roland L. Freeman, Meta Warrick Fuller, Paul Goodnight, Robert Haggins, Ed Hamilton, David Hammons, Inge Hardison, Edwin A. Harleston, Isaac Hathaway, Palmer Hayden, Kyra Hicks, Freida High-Tesfa*giogis, Paul Houzell, Julien Hudson, Margo Humphrey, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Wadsworth Jarrell, Joshua Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Jacob Lawrence, Viola Burley Leak, Charlotte Lewis, Edmonia Lewis, Samella Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Estella Conwill Majozo, Valerie Maynard, Aaron McGruder, Lev Mills, Scipio Moorhead, Archibald Motley, Jr., Howardena Pindell, Horace Pippin, James A. Porter, Harriet Powers, Faith Ringgold, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, JoeSam, Melvin Samuels (NOC 167), O.L. Samuels, Augusta Savage, Joyce J. Scott, Herbert Singleton, Albert A. Smith, Morgan & Marvin Smith, Vincent Smith, Nelson Stevens, Ann Tanksley, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, James Vanderzee, Kara Walker, Paul Wandless, Augustus Washington, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Pat Ward Williams, Hale Woodruff, Purvis Young. 8vo (9.4 x 8.2 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. PHILADELPHIA (PA). African American Museum in Philadelphia. As We See It: Selected Works from the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. February 5-March 21, 2015. Group exhibition of an important mostly mid-Atlantic collection. Curated by Berrisford Boothe. Included: William E. Artis, Edward M. Bannister, Dawoud Bey, Camille Billops, Berrisford Boothe, James Brantley, Moe Brooker, Barbara Bullock, Margaret Burroughs, Charles Burwell, Donald E. Camp, Elizabeth Catlett, Kevin Cole, Allan Rohan Crite, James Dupree, David C. Driskell, Allan Edmunds, Sam Gilliam, Curlee Holton, Ed Hughes, Martina Johnson-Allen, Paul Keene, Beni E. Kosh, Deryl Mackie, Richard Mayhew, Sam Middleton, Charles Sallee, Sterling Shaw, Mei Tei-Sing Smith, Louis Sloan, Nelson Stevens, Charles Searles, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Richard J. Watson. PHILADELPHIA (PA). African American Museum in Philadelphia. Beyond the Lines: Prints From the Collection. 2003-April 24, 2004. Group exhibition. features serigraphs, silkscreens, woodcuts, linocuts, lithographs, etchings and carborundum prints by Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Kerry Coppin, Allan Rohan Crite, John E. Dowell, Jr., James Dupree, Allan Freelon, Rex Goreleigh, Curlee Raven Holton, Hughie Lee-Smith, Nefertiti, John Rozelle, Dox Thrash, Ellen Powell Tiberino, Andrew Turner, James Lesesne Wells, Gilberto Wilson, and Hale Woodruff. PHILADELPHIA (PA). Woodmere Art Museum. In Search of Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art. September 28, 2008-February 22, 2009. 119 pp. exhib. cat., 133 color plates (most full-page) and several b&w illus., checklist of 135 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 92 artists. Texts by Lewis Tanner Moore, Curlee Raven Holton, Margaret Rose Vendryes; brief biogs. by W. Douglas, Paschall. Includes: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Amelia Amaki, Emma Amos, James Atkins, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Cleveland Bellow, Bob Blackburn, Berrisford Boothe, James Brantley, Benjamin Britt, Moe Brooker, Samuel Joseph Brown, Barbara Bullock, Selma urke, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Charles Burwell, Donald Camp, James Camp, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Claude Clark, Irene V. Clark, Nanette Clark, Kevin Cole, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy Crosse, Joseph Delaney, Marita Dingus, David C. Driskell, James Dupree, Walter Edmonds, Allan Edmunds, James Edwards, Melvin Edwards, Allan Freelon, Reginald Gammon, Herbert Gentry, Sam Gilliam, Rex Goreleigh, Barkley Hendricks, Curley Holton, Humbert Howard, Edward Ellis Hughes, Bill Hutson, Leroy Johnson, Martina Joshnson-Allen, Lois Mailou Jones, Ron H. Jones, Paul Keene, Glenn F. Kellum, Columbus Knox, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Ed Loper, Al Loving, Deryl Daniel Mackie, Ulysses Marshall, Richard Mayhew, John McDaniel, Thaddeus G. Mosley, Frank Neal, George Neal, Hayward Oubre, Carlton Parker, Janet Taylor Pickett, Howardena Pindell, Charles Pridgen, Faith Ringgold, Leo Robinson, Qaaim Salik, Raymond Saunders, Charles Searles, Charles Sebree, Sterling Shaw, Louis Sloan, Raymond Steth, Phil Sumpter, Dox Thrash, Ellen Powell Tiberino, Andrew Turner, Howard Watson, Richard Watson, James Lesesne Wells, William T. Williams, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, and Hale Woodruff. 4to, self-wraps. First ed. PLOSKI, HARRY A., ed. The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the Afro-American. New York: A Wiley-Interscience Publication, 1983. 1550 pp. Includes essay on The Black Artist. Gylbert co*ker cited as art consultant. Many misspellings. Artists mentioned include: Scipio Moorhead, James Porter, Eugene Warburg, Robert Duncanson, William H. Simpson, Edward M. Bannister, Joshua Johnston, Robert Douglass, David Bowser, Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner, William Harper, Dorothy Fannin, Meta Fuller, Archibald Motley, Palmer Hayden. Malvin Gray Johnson, Laura Waring, William E. Scott, Hughie Lee-Smith, Zell Ingram, Charles Sallee, Elmer Brown, William E. Smith, George Hulsinger, James Herring, Aaron Douglas, Augusta Savage, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, Charles White, Richmond Barthé, Malvin Gray Johnson, Henry Bannarn, Florence Purviance, Dox Thrash, Robert Blackburn, James Denmark, Dindga McCannon, Frank Wimberly, Ann Tanksley, Don Robertson, Lloyd Toones, Lois Jones, Jo Butler, Robert Threadgill, Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, Norman Lewis, Jimmy Mosley, Samella Lewis, F. L. Spellmon, Phillip Hampton, Venola Seals Jennings, Juanita Moulon, Eugene Jesse Brown, Hayward Oubré, Ademola Olugebefola, Otto Neals, Kay Brown, Jean Taylor, Genesis II, David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Randy Williams, Howardena Pindell, Edward Spriggs, Beauford Delaney, James Vanderzee, Melvin Edwards, Vincent Smith, Alonzo Davis, Dale Davis, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Gordon Parks, Rex Goreleigh, William McBride, Jr., Eldzier Cortor, James Gittens, Joan Maynard. Kynaston McShine, co*ker, Cheryl McClenney, Faith Weaver, Randy Williams, Florence Hardney, Dolores Wright, Cathy Chance, Lowery Sims, Richard Hunt, Roland Ayers, Frank Bowling, Marvin Brown, Walter Cade, Catti, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Manuel Hughes, Barkley Hendricks, Juan Logan, Alvin Loving, Tom Lloyd, Lloyd McNeill, Algernon Miller, Norma Morgan, Mavis Pusey, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Thomas Sills, Thelma Johnson Streat, Alma Thomas, John Torres, Todd Williams, Mahler Ryder, Minnie Evans, Jacob Lawrence, Haywood Rivers, Edward Clark, Camille Billops, Joe Overstreet, Louise Parks, Herbert Gentry, William Edmondson, James Parks, Marion Perkins, Bernard Goss, Reginald Gammon, Emma Amos, Charles Alston, Richard Mayhew, Al Hollingsworth, Calvin Douglass, Merton Simpson, Earl Miller, Felrath Hines, Perry Ferguson, William Majors, James Yeargans. Ruth Waddy; Evangeline Montgomery, Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Gerald Williams, Carolyn Lawrence, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Frank Smith, Howard Mallory, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Nelson Stevens, Vivian Browne, Kay Brown, William Harper, Isaac Hathaway, Julien Hudson, May Howard Jackson, Edmonia Lewis, Patrick Reason, William Simpson, A. B. Wilson, William Braxton, Allan Crite, Alice Gafford, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, William Artis, John Biggers, William Carter, Joseph Delaney, Elton Fax, Frederick Flemister, Ronald Joseph, Horace Pippin, Charles Sebree, Bill Traylor, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Starmanda Bullock, Dana Chandler, Raven Chanticleer, Roy DeCarava, John Dowell, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Daniel Johnson, Geraldine McCullough, Earl Miller, Clarence Morgan, Norma Morgan, Skunder Boghossian, Bob Thompson, Clifton Webb, Jack Whitten. 4to, cloth. 4th ed. PORTER, JAMES A. Modern Negro Art. New York: Dryden Press, 1943. 200 pp. text and indices, bibliog, index of names, plus 76 pp. illus. (4 colorplates.) Foundation reference work from which many others still take their information. Includes: John Henry Adams, Jr., Charles Alston, William E. Artis, Henry A. Avery, Henry (Mike) Bannarn, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Gwendolyn Bennett, Edmund Bereal, Bob Blackburn, Leslie G. Bolling, David Bustill Bowser, William Ernest Braxton, Elmer Brown, Hilda Brown (also listed as Hilda Wilkerson), Richard L. Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Selma Burke, John P. Burr, E. Simms Campbell, John Carlis, Jr., Fred Carlo, William S. Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, John G. Chaplin, Samuel O. Collins, William Arthur Cooper, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Robert Crump, Charles Davis, Thomas Day, Charles C. Davis, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Elba Lightfoot DeReyes, Joseph C. DeVillis, Frank J. Dillon, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, William M. Farrow, Slave of Thomas Fleet, Frederick C. Flemister, B.E. Fountaine (as Fontaine), Allan Freelon, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, John W. Gore, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, Henry Gudgell, John Hailstalk, Clark Hampton, John W. Hardrick, John T. Hailstalk, Edwin A. Harleston, William A. Harper, Oliver Harrington (as Henry), Marcellus Hawkins, Palmer Hayden, Vertis Hayes, James V. Herring, G. W. Hobbs (now known to have been a white artist), Charles F. Holland, Fred Hollingsworth, Julien Hudson, George Hulsinger, Thomas W. Hunster, Sterling V. Hykes, Zell Ingram, John Spencer Jackson, May Howard Jackson, Wilmer Jennings, Everett Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Allen Jones, Henry B. Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Ronald Joseph, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Bertina Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Norman Lewis, Robert H. Lewis, Gerrit Loguen, Edward Loper, Scipio Moorhead, Lenwood Morris, Lottie E. Moss, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., George E. Neal, Robert L. Neal, Alexandre Pickhil, Horace Pippin, Georgette Seabrooke Powell, Pauline Powell, Nelson A. Primus, Elizabeth Prophet, Patrick Reason, Earle W. Richardson, William Ross, Winfred Russell, Charles L. Sallee, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, William Simpson, Albert A. Smith, William E. Smith, Ella Spencer, Teresa Staats, Edward Stidum, Curtis E. Tann, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, W.O. Thompson, Neptune Thurston, Thurmond Townsend, Vidal, Earl Walker, Daniel Warburg, Eugene Warburg, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Aedina White, Charles White, James Williams, A.B. Wilson, Hale Woodruff. [Reprinted in 1969 with a new preface by Porter; and in 1992 in an important scholarly edition by Howard University Press with new introduction by David Driskell, a James A. Porter chronology by Constance Porter Uzelac, and including the prefaces to all prior editions.] 8vo, wraps. Reprint ed. POWELL, RICHARD. African American Art. 2005. Entry in AFRICANA: The Encyclopeida of the African and African American Experience (Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Oxford University Press; April 2005.) Includes mention of: Scipio Moorhead, Joshua Johnson, Patrick Reason, William Simpson, Robert Douglass, Daniel and Eugene Warburg, Edmonia Lewis, Robert S. Duncanson, Edward M. Bannister, William Harper, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Harriet Powers, Edwin A. Harleston, Isaac Scott Hathaway, May Howard Jackson, John Henry Adams, Jr., Meta Warrick Fuller, Palmer C. Hayden, Malvin Gray Johnson, Laura Wheeler Waring, Richmond Barthé, Sargent Johnson, Augusta Savage, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Allan Rohan Crite, Ernest Crichlow, Dox Thrash, William Edmondson, Jacob Lawrence, Horace Pippin, William H. Johnson, Charles Sebree, Eldzier Cortor, Hughie-Lee Smith, Charles White, Minnie Evans, James Hampton, Bob Thompson, Romare Bearden, Murry N. DePillars, Ben Jones, Dana Chandler, Jeff Donaldson, Lois Mailou Jones, John T. Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Frank Bowling, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Raymond Saunders, Alma Thomas, Al Loving, Ed Clark, Joe Overstreet, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams, Clementine Hunter, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Barkley L. Hendricks, Ernie Barnes, Benny Andrews, Betye Saar, (David Driskell, Samella Lewis and Ruth Waddy - as curators), David Hammons, Robert Colescott, Houston Conwill, Alison Saar, Renée Stout, Albert Chong, Lyle Ashton Harris, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, Dawoud Bey, Renée Cox, Lorraine O'Grady, Kerry James Marshall, Howardena Pindell, Gary Simmons, Kara Walker, and Fred Wilson. REYNOLDS, GARY A. and BERYL J. WRIGHT. Against the Odds: African American Artists and the Harmon Foundation. Newark: The Newark Museum, 1989. 298 pp., 129 illus., 28 in color, plus photos of all artists, exhib. Checklist of 130 works, Harmon Foundation exhib. records and awards, bibliog., index. A major reference catalogue with eight important scholarly texts by David Driskell, Gary A. Reynolds, Richard J. Powell, Deborah Willis, and Beryl J. Wright. Artists include: James Latimer Allen, William Ellisworth Artis, Richmond Barthé, Leslie Garland Bolling, Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr., Allan Rohan Crite, Charles Clarence Dawson, Beauford Delaney, Frank Joseph Dillon, William McKnight Farrow, Allan Randall Freelon, King Daniel Ganaway; Edwin Augustus Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Wilmer Angier Jennings, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Claude Johnson, William Henry Johnson, Henry Bozeman Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Archibald John Motley Jr., Edgar Eugene Phipps, Robert Savon Pious, James Amos Porter, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Albert Alexander Smith, James Lesesne Wells, Ellis Wilson, Hale Aspacio Woodruff. 4to (29 x 23 cm.), cloth, dust jacket. First ed. RIGGS, THOMAS, ed. St. James Guide to Black Artists. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. xxiv, 625 pp., illus. A highly selective reference work listing only approximately 400 artists of African descent worldwide (including around 300 African American artists, approximately 20% women artists.) Illus. of work or photos of many artists, brief descriptive texts by well-known scholars, with selected list of exhibitions for each, plus many artists' statements. A noticeable absence of many artists under 45, most photographers, and many women artists. Far fewer artists listed here than in Igoe, Cederholm, or other sources. Stout 4to (29 cm.), laminated yellow papered boards. First ed. ROCHELLE, BELINDA. Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American poetry and art. New York: Amistad/ HarperCollins, 2001. Unpag. (48 pp.), 20 color plates. Twenty works of art by 16 African American artists paired with twenty poems by twenty poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou. Designed as a juvenile audience book. Artists include: Jacob Lawrence, Lev Mills, Charles Dawson, Robert Duncanson, William H. Johnson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Hughie Lee-Smith, Romare Bearden, Charles Searles, Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Allan Rohan Crite, Horace Pippin, Augusta Savage, Aaron Douglas, Emilio Cruz. 8vo, cloth. SALEM (MA). Peabody Essex Museum. In Conversation: Modern African American Art. June 1-September 2, 2013. Group exhibition of over 100 paintings, sculptures and photographs by 43 artists, drawn from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection. Included: Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John T. Biggers, Frederick T. Brown, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Thornton Dial, Frederick Eversley, Roland Freeman, Sam Gilliam, Tony Gleaton, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Robert McNeill, Marilyn Nance, Gordon Parks, Sr., Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, and James Vanderzee, among many others. SAN ANTONIO (TX). San Antonio Museum of Art. The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art. February 4-April 3, 1994. 68 pp. exhib. cat., 59 illus., 23 color plates, checklist of 124 works, bibliog. Essays by Gylbert co*ker and Corinne Jennings. Artists in the exhibition: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, John W. Banks, Edward Bannister, Basquiat, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Grafton Tyler Brown, Samuel J. Brown, William Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Claude Clark, Sr., John Coleman, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Mary R. Daniel, Alonzo Davis, Joseph Delaney, Thornton Dial, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Minnie Evans, William Farrow, Rex Goreleigh, John W. Hardrick, William A. Harper, Palmer Hayden, Clementine Hunter, J. Johnson, William H. Johnson, Frank Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Lionel Lofton, Edward L. Loper, Ulysses Marshall, Sam Middleton, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Ike Morgan, Emma Lee Moss, Archibald Motley, Marion Perkins, Charles Ethan Porter, Patrick Reason, Charles Sallee, Raymond Saunders, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, William E. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Dox Thrash, William Tolliver, Bill Traylor, James Vanderzee, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Ellis Wilson, John Wilson, Hale Woodruff, and Joseph Yoakum. [Traveled to: El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX; Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, GA; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN.] 4to (28 cm.), pictorial wraps. First ed. SHANNON, HOPE J. Legendary Locals of Boston s South End. Arcadia, 2014. 128 pp., photos. Includes: Allan Rohan Crite. 8vo (23.5 x 16.5), wraps. SPRADLING, MARY MACE. In Black and White: Afro-Americans in Print. Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo Public Library, 1980. 2 vols. 1089 pp. Includes: John H. Adams, Ron Adams, Alonzo Aden, Muhammad Ali, Baba Alabi Alinya, Charles Alston, Charlotte Amevor, Benny Andrews, Ralph Arnold, William Artis, Ellsworth Ausby, Jacqueline Ayer, Calvin Bailey, Jene Ballentine, Casper Banjo, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Dutreuil Barjon, Ernie Barnes, Carolyn Plaskett Barrow, Richmond Barthé, Beatrice Bassette, Ad Bates, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Roberta Bell, Cleveland Bellow, Ed Bereal, Arthur Berry, DeVoice Berry, Cynthia Bethune, Charles Bible, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Bob Blackburn, Irving Blaney, Bessie Blount, Gloria Bohanon, Leslie Bolling, Shirley Bolton, Charles Bonner, Michael Borders, John Borican, Earl Bostic, Augustus Bowen, David Bowser, David Bradford, Edward Brandford, Brumsic Brandon, William Braxton, Arthur Britt Sr., Benjamin Britt, Sylvester Britton, Elmer Brown, Fred Brown, Kay Brown, Margery Brown, Richard L. Brown, Samuel Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Henry Brownlee, Linda Bryant, Starmanda Bullock, Juana Burke, Selma Burke, Eugene Burkes, Viola Burley, Calvin Burnett, John Burr, Margaret Burroughs, Nathaniel Bustion, Sheryle Butler, Elmer Simms Campbell, Thomas Cannon, Nick Canyon, Edward Carr, Art Carraway, Ted Carroll, Joseph S. Carter, William Carter, Catti, George Washington Carver, Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Mitchell Caton, Dana Chandler, Kitty Chavis, George Clack, Claude Clark, Ed Clark, J. Henrik Clarke, Leroy Clarke, Ladybird Cleveland, Floyd Coleman, Donald Coles, Margaret Collins, Paul Collins, Sam Collins, Dan Concholar, Arthur Coppedge, Wallace X. Conway, Leonard Cooper, William A. Cooper, Art Coppedge, Eldzier Cortor, Samuel Countee, Harold Cousins, William Craft, Cleo Crawford, Marva Cremer, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Crite, Jerrolyn Crooks, Harvey Cropper, Doris Crudup, Robert Crump, Dewey Crumpler, Frank E. Cummings, William Curtis, Mary Reed Daniel, Alonzo Davis, Charles Davis, Willis "Bing" Davis, Dale Davis, Charles C. Dawson, Juette Day, Thomas Day, Roy DeCarava, Paul DeCroom, Avel DeKnight, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Murry DePillars, Robert D'Hue, Kenneth Dickerson, Leo Dillon, Raymond Dobard, Vernon Dobard, Jeff Donaldson, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, Robert Douglass, Glanton Dowdell, David Driskell, Yolande Du Bois, Robert Duncanson, Eugenia Dunn, John Dunn, Adolphus Ealey, Eugene Eda, Melvin Edwards, Gaye Elliington, Annette Ensley, Marion Epting, Minnie Evans, Frederick Eversley, James Fairfax, Kenneth Falana, Allen Fannin, John Farrar, William Farrow, Elton Fax, Muriel Feelings, Tom Feelings, Frederick Flemister, Mikelle Fletcher, Curt Flood, Thomas Floyd, Doyle Foreman, Mozelle Forte (costume and fabric designer), Amos Fortune, Mrs. C.R. Foster, Inez Fourcard (as Fourchard), John Francis, Miriam Francis, Allan Freelon, Meta Warrick Fuller, Stephany Fuller, Gale Fulton-Ross, Ibibio Fundi, Alice Gafford, Otis Galbreath, West Gale, Reginald Gammon, Jim Gary, Herbert Gentry, Joseph Geran, Jimmy Gibbez, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, Manuel Gomez, Russell Gordon, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, Samuel Green, William Green, Donald Greene, Joseph Grey, Ron Griffin, Eugene Grigsby, Henry Gudgell, Charles Haines, Clifford Hall, Horathel Hall, Wesley Hall, David Hammons, James Hampton, Phillip Hampton, Lorraine Hansberry, Marvin Harden, Arthur Hardie, Inge Hardison, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William A. Harper, Gilbert Harris, John Harris, Maren Hassinger, Isaac Hathaway, Frank Hayden, Kitty Hayden, Palmer Hayden, Vertis Hayes, Wilbur Haynie, Dion Henderson, Ernest Herbert, Leon Hicks, Hector Hill, Tony Hill, Geoffrey Holder, Al Hollingsworth, Varnette Honeywood, Earl Hooks, Humbert Howard, James Howard, Raymond Howell, Julien Hudson, Manuel Hughes, Margo Humphrey, Thomas Hunster, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Norman Hunter, Orville Hurt, Bill Hutson, Nell Ingram, Tanya Izanhour, Ambrose Jackson, Earl Jackson, May Jackson, Nigel Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Walter Jackson, Louise Jefferson, Ted Joans, Daniel Johnson, Lester L. Johnson, Jr., Malvin Gray Johnson, Marie Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Barbara Jones, Ben Jones, Calvin Jones, Frederick D. Jones Jr., James Arlington Jones, Lawrence Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Eddie Jack Jordan, Ronald Joseph, Lemuel Joyner, Paul Keene, Elyse J. Kennart, Joseph Kersey, Gwendolyn Knight, Lawrence Compton Kolawole, Oliver LaGrone, Artis Lane, Doyle Lane, Raymond Lark, Lewis H. Latimer, Jacob Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Bertina Lee, Joanna Lee, Peter Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Leon Leonard, Curtis Lewis, Edmonia Lewis, James Edward Lewis, Norman Lewis, Samella Lewis, Charles Lilly, Henri Linton, Jules Lion, Romeyn Lippman, Tom Lloyd, Jon Lockard, Juan Logan, Willie Longshore, Ed Loper, Ed Love, Al Loving, Geraldine McCullough, Lawrence McGaugh, Charles McGee, Donald McIlvaine, James McMillan, William McNeil, Lloyd McNeill, David Mann, William Marshall, Helen Mason, Philip Mason, Winifred Mason, Calvin Massey, Lester (Nathan) Mathews, William Maxwell, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Yvonne Meo, Sam Middleton, Onnie Millar, Aaron Miller, Eva Miller, Lev Mills, P'lla Mills, Evangeline J. Montgomery, Arthur Monroe, Frank Moore, Ron Moore, Scipio Moorhead, Norma Morgan, Ken Morris, Calvin Morrison, Jimmie Mosely, Leo Moss, Lottie Moss, Archibald Motley, Hugh Mulzac, Frank Neal, George Neal, Otto Neals, Shirley Nero, Effie Newsome, Nommo, George Norman, Georg Olden, Ademola Olugebefola, Conora O'Neal (fashion designer), Cora O'Neal, Lula O'Neal, Pearl O'Neal, Ron O'Neal, Hayward Oubré, John Outterbridge, Carl Owens, Lorenzo Pace, Alvin Paige, Robert Paige, William Pajaud, Denise Palm, Norman Parish, Jules Parker, James Parks, Edgar Patience, Angela Perkins, Marion Perkins, Michael Perry, Jacqueline Peters, Douglas Phillips, Harper Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Howardena Pindell, Horace Pippin, Julie Ponceau, James Porter, Leslie Price, Ramon Price, Nelson Primus, Nancy Prophet, Noah Purifoy, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Otis Rathel, Patrick Reason, William Reid, John Rhoden, Barbara Chase-Riboud, William Richmond, Percy Ricks, Gary Rickson, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, Faith Ringgold, Malkia Roberts, Brenda Rogers, Charles Rogers, George Rogers, Arthur Rose, Nancy Rowland, Winfred Russell, Mahler Ryder, Betye Saar, Charles Sallee, Marion Sampler, John Sanders, Walter Sanford, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Thomas Sills, Carroll Simms, Jewel Simon, Walter Simon, Merton Simpson, William H. Simpson, Louis Slaughter, Gwen Small, Albert A. Smith, Alvin Smith, Hughie Lee-Smith, John Henry Smith, Jacob Lawrence, John Steptoe, Nelson Stevens, Edward Stidum, Elmer C. Stoner, Lou Stovall, Henry O. Tanner, Ralph Tate, Betty Blayton Taylor, Della Taylor, Bernita Temple, Herbert Temple, Alma Thomas, Elaine Thomas, Larry Thomas, Carolyn Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Mildred Thompson, Mozelle Thompson, Robert (Bob) Thompson, Dox Thrash, Neptune Thurston, John Torres, Nat Turner, Leo Twiggs, Bernard Upshur, Royce Vaughn, Ruth Waddy, Anthony Walker, Earl Walker, Larry Walker, William Walker, Daniel Warburg, Eugene Warburg, Carole Ward, Laura Waring, Mary P. Washington, James Watkins, Lawrence Watson, Edward Webster, Allen A. Weeks, Robert Weil, James Wells, Pheoris West, Sarah West, John Weston, Delores Wharton, Amos White, Charles White, Garrett Whyte, Alfredus Williams, Chester Williams, Douglas R. Williams, Laura Williams, Matthew Williams, Morris Williams, Peter Williams, Rosetta Williams (as Rosita), Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Ed Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, John Wilson, Stanley Wilson, Vincent Wilson, Hale Woodruff, Bernard Wright, Charles Young, Kenneth Young, Milton Young. [Note the 3rd edition consists of two volumes published by Gale Research in 1980, with a third supplemental volume issued in 1985.] Large stout 4tos, red cloth. 3rd revised expanded edition. ST LOUIS (MO). St. Louis Public Library. An index to Black American artists. St. Louis: St. Louis Public Library, 1972. 50 pp. Also includes art historians such as Henri Ghent. In this database, only artists are cross-referenced. 4to (28 cm.) STORRS (CT). William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut. Currents: Works by African American Artists in the Benton Collection. March 12-May 25, 2005. Paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. Includes: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Norman Lewis, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles White, Kara Walker and Carrie Mae Weems. SYRACUSE (NY). Community Folk Art Gallery, Syracuse University. 25 Years Later. Thru March 5, 1998. Group exhibition honoring Allan Rohan Crite with work by five artists from Saratoga and Schenectady including Niki June Borland and others. TAHA, HALIMA. Collecting African American Art: Works on Paper and Canvas. New York: Crown, 1998. xvi, 270 pp., approx. 150 color plates, brief bibliog., index, appendices of art and photo dealers, museums and other resources. Intro. by Ntozake Shange. Forewords by Dierdre Bibby and Samella Lewis. Text consists of a few sentences at best on most of the hundreds of listed artists. Numerous typos and other errors and misinformation throughout. 4to (29 cm.), laminated papered boards, d.j. THOMISON, DENNIS. The Black Artist in America: An Index to Reproductions. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1991. Includes: index to Black artists, bibliography (including doctoral dissertations and audiovisual materials.) Many of the dozens of spelling errors and incomplete names have been corrected in this entry and names of known white artists omitted from our entry, but errors may still exist in this entry, so beware: Jesse Aaron, Charles Abramson, Maria Adair, Lauren Adam, Ovid P. Adams, Ron Adams, Terry Adkins, (Jonathan) Ta Coumba T. Aiken, Jacques Akins, Lawrence E. Alexander, Tina Allen, Pauline Alley-Barnes, Charles Alston, Frank Alston, Charlotte Amevor, Emma Amos (Levine), Allie Anderson, Benny Andrews, Edmund Minor Archer, Pastor Argudin y Pedroso [as Y. Pedroso Argudin], Anna Arnold, Ralph Arnold, William Artis, Kwasi Seitu Asante [as Kwai Seitu Asantey], Steve Ashby, Rose Auld, Ellsworth Ausby, Henry Avery, Charles Axt, Roland Ayers, Annabelle Bacot, Calvin Bailey, Herman Kofi Bailey, Malcolm Bailey, Annabelle Baker, E. Loretta Ballard, Jene Ballentine, Casper Banjo, Bill Banks, Ellen Banks, John W. Banks, Henry Bannarn, Edward Bannister, Curtis R. Barnes, Ernie Barnes, James MacDonald Barnsley, Richmond Barthé, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Daniel Carter Beard, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Beasley, Falcon Beazer, Arthello Beck, Sherman Beck, Cleveland Bellow, Gwendolyn Bennett, Herbert Bennett, Ed Bereal, Arthur Berry, Devoice Berry, Ben Bey, John Biggers, Camille Billops, Willie Birch, Eloise Bishop, Robert Blackburn, Tarleton Blackwell, Lamont K. Bland, Betty Blayton, Gloria Bohanon, Hawkins Bolden, Leslie Bolling, Shirley Bolton, Higgins Bond, Erma Booker, Michael Borders, Ronald Boutte, Siras Bowens, Lynn Bowers, Frank Bowling, David Bustill Bowser, David Patterson Boyd, David Bradford, Harold Bradford, Peter Bradley, Fred Bragg, Winston Branch, Brumsic Brandon, James Brantley, William Braxton, Bruce Brice, Arthur Britt, James Britton, Sylvester Britton, Moe Brooker, Bernard Brooks, Mable Brooks, Oraston Brooks-el, David Scott Brown, Elmer Brown, Fred Brown, Frederick Brown, Grafton Brown, James Andrew Brown, Joshua Brown, Kay Brown, Marvin Brown, Richard Brown, Samuel Brown, Vivian Browne, Henry Brownlee, Beverly Buchanan, Selma Burke, Arlene Burke-Morgan, Calvin Burnett, Margaret Burroughs, Cecil Burton, Charles Burwell, Nathaniel Bustion, David Butler, Carole Byard, Albert Byrd, Walter Cade, Joyce Cadoo, Bernard Cameron, Simms Campbell, Frederick Campbell, Thomas Cannon (as Canon), Nicholas Canyon, John Carlis, Arthur Carraway, Albert Carter, Allen Carter, George Carter, Grant Carter, Ivy Carter, Keithen Carter, Robert Carter, William Carter, Yvonne Carter, George Washington Carver, Bernard Casey, Yvonne Catchings, Elizabeth Catlett, Frances Catlett, Mitchell Caton, Catti, Charlotte Chambless, Dana Chandler, John Chandler, Robin Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Kitty Chavis, Edward Christmas, Petra Cintron, George Clack, Claude Clark Sr., Claude Lockhart Clark, Edward Clark, Irene Clark, LeRoy Clarke, Pauline Clay, Denise Cobb, Gylbert co*ker, Marion Elizabeth Cole, Archie Coleman, Floyd Coleman, Donald Coles, Robert Colescott, Carolyn Collins, Paul Collins, Richard Collins, Samuel Collins, Don Concholar, Wallace Conway, Houston Conwill, William A. Cooper, Arthur Coppedge, Jean Cornwell, Eldzier Cortor, Samuel Countee, Harold Cousins, Cleo Crawford, Marva Cremer, Ernest Crichlow, Norma Criss, Allan Rohan Crite, Harvey Cropper, Geraldine Crossland, Rushie Croxton, Doris Crudup, Dewey Crumpler, Emilio Cruz, Charles Cullen (White artist), Vince Cullers, Michael Cummings, Urania Cummings, DeVon Cunningham, Samuel Curtis, William Curtis, Artis Dameron, Mary Reed Daniel, Aaron Darling, Alonzo Davis, Bing Davis, Charles Davis, Dale Davis, Rachel Davis, Theresa Davis, Ulysses Davis, Walter Lewis Davis, Charles C. Davis, William Dawson, Juette Day, Roy DeCarava, Avel DeKnight, Beauford Delaney, Joseph Delaney, Nadine Delawrence, Louis Delsarte, Richard Dempsey, J. Brooks Dendy, III (as Brooks Dendy), James Denmark, Murry DePillars, Joseph DeVillis, Robert D'Hue, Kenneth Dickerson, Voris Dickerson, Charles Dickson, Frank Dillon, Leo Dillon, Robert Dilworth, James Donaldson, Jeff Donaldson, Lillian Dorsey, William Dorsey, Aaron Douglas, Emory Douglas, Calvin Douglass, Glanton Dowdell, John Dowell, Sam Doyle, David Driskell, Ulric S. Dunbar, Robert Duncanson, Eugenia Dunn, John Morris Dunn, Edward Dwight, Adolphus Ealey, Lawrence Edelin, William Edmondson, Anthony Edwards, Melvin Edwards, Eugene Eda [as Edy], John Elder, Maurice Ellison, Walter Ellison, Mae Engron, Annette Easley, Marion Epting, Melvyn Ettrick (as Melvin), Clifford Eubanks, Minnie Evans, Darrell Evers, Frederick Eversley, Cyril Fabio, James Fairfax, Kenneth Falana, Josephus Farmer, John Farrar, William Farrow, Malaika Favorite, Elton Fax, Tom Feelings, Claude Ferguson, Violet Fields, Lawrence Fisher, Thomas Flanagan, Walter Flax, Frederick Flemister, Mikelle Fletcher, Curt Flood, Batunde Folayemi, George Ford, Doyle Foreman, Leroy Foster, Walker Foster, John Francis, Richard Franklin, Ernest Frazier, Allan Freelon, Gloria Freeman, Pam Friday, John Fudge, Meta Fuller, Ibibio Fundi, Ramon Gabriel, Alice Gafford, West Gale, George Gamble, Reginald Gammon, Christine Gant, Jim Gary, Adolphus Garrett, Leroy Gaskin, Lamerol A. Gatewood, Herbert Gentry, Joseph Geran, Ezekiel Gibbs, William Giles, Sam Gilliam, Robert Glover, William Golding, Paul Goodnight, Erma Gordon, L. T. Gordon, Robert Gordon, Russell Gordon, Rex Goreleigh, Bernard Goss, Joe Grant, Oscar Graves, Todd Gray, Annabelle Green, James Green, Jonathan Green, Robert Green, Donald Greene, Michael Greene, Joseph Grey, Charles Ron Griffin, Eugene Grigsby, Raymond Grist, Michael Gude, Ethel Guest, John Hailstalk, Charles Haines, Horathel Hall, Karl Hall, Wesley Hall, Edward Hamilton, Eva Hamlin-Miller, David Hammons, James Hampton, Phillip Hampton, Marvin Harden, Inge Hardison, John Hardrick, Edwin Harleston, William Harper, Hugh Harrell, Oliver Harrington, Gilbert Harris, Hollon Harris, John Harris, Scotland J. B. Harris, Warren Harris, Bessie Harvey, Maren Hassinger, Cynthia Hawkins (as Thelma), William Hawkins, Frank Hayden, Kitty Hayden, Palmer Hayden, William Hayden, Vertis Hayes, Anthony Haynes, Wilbur Haynie, Benjamin Hazard, June Hector, Dion Henderson, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, William Henderson, Barkley Hendricks, Gregory A. Henry, Robert Henry, Ernest Herbert, James Herring, Mark Hewitt, Leon Hicks, Renalda Higgins, Hector Hill, Felrath Hines, Alfred Hinton, Tim Hinton, Adrienne Hoard, Irwin Hoffman, Raymond Holbert, Geoffrey Holder, Robin Holder, Lonnie Holley, Alvin Hollingsworth, Eddie Holmes, Varnette Honeywood, Earl J. Hooks, Ray Horner, Paul Houzell, Helena Howard, Humbert Howard, John Howard, Mildred Howard, Raymond Howell, William Howell, Calvin Hubbard, Henry Hudson, Julien Hudson, James Huff, Manuel Hughes, Margo Humphrey, Raymond Hunt, Richard Hunt, Clementine Hunter, Elliott Hunter, Arnold Hurley, Bill Hutson, Zell Ingram, Sue Irons, A. B. Jackson, Gerald Jackson, Harlan Jackson, Hiram Jackson, May Jackson, Oliver Jackson, Robert Jackson, Suzanne Jackson, Walter Jackson, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Bob James, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jasmin Joseph [as Joseph Jasmin], Archie Jefferson, Rosalind Jeffries, Noah Jemison, Barbara Fudge Jenkins, Florian Jenkins, Chester Jennings, Venola Jennings, Wilmer Jennings, Georgia Jessup, Johana, Daniel Johnson, Edith Johnson, Harvey Johnson, Herbert Johnson, Jeanne Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Marie Johnson-Calloway, Milton Derr (as Milton Johnson), Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Joshua Johnston, Ben Jones, Calvin Jones, Dorcas Jones, Frank A. Jones, Frederick D. Jones, Jr. (as Frederic Jones), Henry B. Jones, Johnny Jones, Lawrence Arthur Jones, Leon Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Nathan Jones, Tonnie Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Jack Jordan, Cliff Joseph, Ronald Joseph, Lemuel Joyner, Edward Judie, Michael Kabu, Arthur Kaufman, Charles Keck, Paul Keene, John Kendrick, Harriet Kennedy, Leon Kennedy, Joseph Kersey; Virginia Kiah, Henri King, James King, Gwendolyn Knight, Robert Knight, Lawrence Kolawole, Brenda Lacy, (Laura) Jean Lacy, Roy LaGrone, Artis Lane, Doyle Lane, Raymond Lark, Carolyn Lawrence, Jacob Lawrence, James Lawrence, Clarence Lawson, Louis LeBlanc, James Lee, Hughie Lee-Smith, Lizetta LeFalle-Collins, Leon Leonard, Bruce LeVert, Edmonia Lewis, Edwin E. Lewis, Flora Lewis, James E. Lewis, Norman Lewis, Roy Lewis, Samella Lewis, Elba Lightfoot, Charles Lilly [as Lily], Arturo Lindsay, Henry Linton, Jules Lion, James Little, Marcia Lloyd, Tom Lloyd, Jon Lockard, Donald Locke, Lionel Lofton, Juan Logan, Bert Long, Willie Longshore, Edward Loper, Francisco Lord, Jesse Lott, Edward Love, Nina Lovelace, Whitfield Lovell, Alvin Loving, Ramon Loy, William Luckett, John Lutz, Don McAllister, Theadius McCall, Dindga McCannon, Edward McCluney, Jesse McCowan, Sam McCrary, Geraldine McCullough, Lawrence McGaugh, Charles McGee, Donald McIlvaine, Karl McIntosh, Joseph Mack, Edward McKay, Thomas McKinney, Alexander McMath, Robert McMillon, William McNeil, Lloyd McNeill, Clarence Major, William Majors, David Mann, Ulysses Marshall, Phillip Lindsay Mason, Lester Mathews, Sharon Matthews, William (Bill) Maxwell, Gordon Mayes, Marietta Mayes, Richard Mayhew, Valerie Maynard, Victoria Meek, Leon Meeks, Yvonne Meo, Helga Meyer, Gaston Micheaux, Charles Mickens, Samuel Middleton, Onnie Millar, Aaron Miller, Algernon Miller, Don Miller, Earl Miller, Eva Hamlin Miller, Guy Miller, Julia Miller, Charles Milles, Armsted Mills, Edward Mills, Lev Mills, Priscilla Mills (P'lla), Carol Mitchell, Corinne Mitchell, Tyrone Mitchell, Arthur Monroe, Elizabeth Montgomery, Ronald Moody, Ted Moody, Frank Moore, Ron Moore, Sabra Moore, Theophilus Moore, William Moore, Leedell Moorehead, Scipio Moorhead, Clarence Morgan, Norma Morgan, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Patricia Morris, Keith Morrison, Lee Jack Morton, Jimmie Mosely, David Mosley, Lottie Moss, Archibald Motley, Hugh Mulzac, Betty Murchison, J. B. Murry, Teixera Nash, Inez Nathaniel, Frank Neal, George Neal, Jerome Neal, Robert Neal, Otto Neals, Robert Newsome, James Newton, Rochelle Nicholas, John Nichols, Isaac Nommo, Oliver Nowlin, Trudell Obey, Constance Okwumabua, Osira Olatunde, Kermit Oliver, Yaounde Olu, Ademola Olugebefola, Mary O'Neal, Haywood Oubré, Simon Outlaw, John Outterbridge, Joseph Overstreet, Carl Owens, Winnie Owens-Hart, Lorenzo Pace, William Pajaud, Denise Palm, James Pappas, Christopher Parks, James Parks, Louise Parks, Vera Parks, Oliver Parson, James Pate, Edgar Patience, John Payne, Leslie Payne, Sandra Peck, Alberto Pena, Angela Perkins, Marion Perkins, Michael Perry, Bertrand Phillips, Charles James Phillips, Harper Phillips, Ted Phillips, Delilah Pierce, Elijah Pierce, Harold Pierce, Anderson Pigatt, Stanley Pinckney, Howardena Pindell, Elliott Pinkney, Jerry Pinkney, Robert Pious, Adrian Piper, Horace Pippin, Betty Pitts, Stephanie Pogue, Naomi Polk, Charles Porter, James Porter, Georgette Powell, Judson Powell, Richard Powell, Daniel Pressley, Leslie Price, Ramon Price, Nelson Primus, Arnold Prince, E. (Evelyn?) Proctor, Nancy Prophet, Ronnie Prosser, William Pryor, Noah Purifoy, Florence Purviance, Martin Puryear, Mavis Pusey, Teodoro Ramos Blanco y Penita, Helen Ramsaran, Joseph Randolph; Thomas Range, Frank Rawlings, Jennifer Ray, Maxine Raysor, Patrick Reason, Roscoe Reddix, Junius Redwood, James Reed, Jerry Reed, Donald Reid, O. Richard Reid, Robert Reid, Leon Renfro, John Rhoden, Ben Richardson, Earle Richardson, Enid Richardson, Gary Rickson, John Riddle, Gregory Ridley, Faith Ringgold, Haywood Rivers, Arthur Roach, Malkia Roberts, Royal Robertson, Aminah Robinson, Charles Robinson, John N. Robinson, Peter L. Robinson, Brenda Rogers, Charles Rogers, Herbert Rogers, Juanita Rogers, Sultan Rogers, Bernard Rollins, Henry Rollins, Arthur Rose, Charles Ross, James Ross, Nellie Mae Rowe, Sandra Rowe, Nancy Rowland, Winfred Russsell, Mahler Ryder, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Charles Sallee, JoeSam., Marion Sampler, Bert Samples, Juan Sanchez, Eve Sandler, Walter Sanford, Floyd Sapp, Raymond Saunders, Augusta Savage, Ann Sawyer, Sydney Schenck, Vivian Schuyler Key, John Scott (Johnny) , John Tarrell Scott, Joyce Scott, William Scott, Charles Searles, Charles Sebree, Bernard Sepyo, Bennie Settles, Franklin Shands, Frank Sharpe, Christopher Shelton, Milton Sherrill, Thomas Sills, Gloria Simmons, Carroll Simms, Jewell Simon, Walter Simon, Coreen Simpson, Ken Simpson, Merton Simpson, William Simpson, Michael Singletary (as Singletry), Nathaniel Sirles, Margaret Slade (Kelley), Van Slater, Louis Sloan, Albert A. Smith, Alfred J. Smith, Alvin Smith, Arenzo Smith, Damballah Dolphus Smith, Floyd Smith, Frank Smith, George Smith, Howard Smith, John Henry Smith, Marvin Smith, Mary T. Smith, Sue Jane Smith, Vincent Smith, William Smith, Zenobia Smith, Rufus Snoddy, Sylvia Snowden, Carroll Sockwell, Ben Solowey, Edgar Sorrells, Georgia Speller, Henry Speller, Shirley Stark, David Stephens, Lewis Stephens, Walter Stephens, Erik Stephenson, Nelson Stevens, Mary Stewart, Renée Stout, Edith Strange, Thelma Streat, Richard Stroud, Dennis Stroy, Charles Suggs, Sharon Sulton, Johnnie Swearingen, Earle Sweeting, Roderick Sykes, Clarence Talley, Ann Tanksley, Henry O. Tanner, James Tanner, Ralph Tate, Carlton Taylor, Cecil Taylor, Janet Taylor Pickett, Lawrence Taylor, William (Bill) Taylor, Herbert Temple, Emerson Terry, Evelyn Terry, Freida Tesfa*giorgis, Alma Thomas, Charles Thomas, James "Son Ford" Thomas, Larry Erskine Thomas, Matthew Thomas, Roy Thomas, William Thomas (a.k.a. Juba Solo), Conrad Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Mildred Thompson, Phyllis Thompson, Bob Thompson, Russ Thompson, Dox Thrash, Mose Tolliver, William Tolliver, Lloyd Toone, John Torres, Elaine Towns, Bill Traylor, Charles Tucker, Clive Tucker, Yvonne Edwards Tucker, Charlene Tull, Donald Turner, Leo Twiggs, Alfred Tyler, Anna Tyler, Barbara Tyson Mosley, Bernard Upshur, Jon Urquhart, Florestee Vance, Ernest Varner, Royce Vaughn, George Victory, Harry Vital, Ruth Waddy, Annie Walker, Charles Walker, Clinton Walker, Earl Walker, Lawrence Walker, Raymond Walker [a.k.a. Bo Walker], William Walker, Bobby Walls, Daniel Warburg, Eugene Warburg, Denise Ward-Brown, Evelyn Ware, Laura Waring, Masood Ali Warren, Horace Washington, James Washington, Mary Washington, Timothy Washington, Richard Waters, James Watkins, Curtis Watson, Howard Watson, Willard Watson, Richard Waytt, Claude Weaver, Stephanie Weaver, Clifton Webb, Derek Webster, Edward Webster, Albert Wells, James Wells, Roland Welton, Barbara Wesson, Pheoris West, Lamonte Westmoreland, Charles White, Cynthia White, Franklin White, George White, J. Philip White, Jack White (sculptor), Jack White (painter), John Whitmore, Jack Whitten, Garrett Whyte, Benjamin Wigfall, Bertie Wiggs, Deborah Wilkins, Timothy Wilkins, Billy Dee Williams, Chester Williams, Douglas Williams, Frank Williams, George Williams, Gerald Williams, Jerome Williams, Jose Williams, Laura Williams, Matthew Williams, Michael K. Williams, Pat Ward Williams, Randy Williams, Roy Lee Williams, Todd Williams, Walter Williams, William T. Williams, Yvonne Williams, Philemona Williamson, Stan Williamson, Luster Willis, A. B. Wilson, Edward Wilson, Ellis Wilson, Fred Wilson, George Wilson, Henry Wilson, John Wilson, Stanley C. Wilson, Linda Windle, Eugene Winslow, Vernon Winslow, Cedric Winters, Viola Wood, Hale Woodruff, Roosevelt Woods, Shirley Woodson, Beulah Woodard, Bernard Wright, Dmitri Wright, Estella Viola Wright, George Wright, Richard Wyatt, Frank Wyley, Richard Yarde, James Yeargans, Joseph Yoakum, Bernard Young, Charles Young, Clarence Young, Kenneth Young, Milton Young. WASHINGTON (DC). American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution. African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond. April 27-September 3, 2012. 256 pp. exhib. cat., color and b&w illus. Text by Richard J. Powell, with catalogue entries by Virginia Mecklenburg, Theresa Slowik and Maricia Battle. Curated by Virginia Mecklenburg. A selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by forty-three black artists who explored the African American experience from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights era and the decades beyond. [Traveling to: Muscarelle Museum of Art, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, September 28, 2012-January 6, 2013; Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL, February 1-April 28, 2013; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, June 1-September 2, 2013; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN, February 14-May 25, 2014; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, June 28-September 21, 2014; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, October 18, 2014-January 4, 2015.] 4to (12.3 x 10.3 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. WASHINGTON (DC). Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture. Locating the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in African American Art. February 14-June 15, 1999. 27 pp. exhib. cat., 39 illus. (most in color). Texts by Deborah Willis, Leslie King-Hammond, Halima Taha. Artists include: Akili Ron Anderson, Radcliffe Bailey, Romare Bearden, Donald Bernard, John Biggers, David Boothman, Archie Byron, Schroeder Cherry, Carl Clark, Linda Day Clark, Alvin Clayton, Floyd Coleman, Adger W. Cowans, Allan Rohan Crite, Michael Cunningham, Willis Bing Davis, Nadine DeLawrence, Aaron Douglas, David Driskell, James E. Dupree, Espi Frazier, L'Merchie Frazier, Reginald Gammon, Eugene J. Grigsby, Jr., Leslie King-Hammond, Michael D. Harris, Chester Higgins, Reginald L. Jackson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ben Jones, Winston Kennedy, Melvina Lathan, Nashormeh Lindo, Arturo Lindsay, Valerie Maynard, Tom Miller, Evangeline J. Montgomery, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Yahya Muhammad, Ademola Olugebefola, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Lorenzo Pace, Johnice I. Parker, James Phillips, Paula Phillips, Elijah Pierce, Horace Pippin, Sheila Pree, Ken Royster, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Jeffrey Scales, Meg Henson Scales, Michael E. Scoffield, Elizabeth Talford Scott, Joyce Scott, Danny Simmons, Clarissa Sligh, David Smedley, Frank Smith, MeiTei Sing Smith, Nelson Stevens, Renée Stout, Allen tringfellow, Nina G. Squires, Henry Ossawa Tanner, William B. Taylor, James W. Washington, Jr., Richard J. Watson, James L Wells, Pheoris West, Carlton Wilkinson, Richard Yarde. 4to (28 cm.), stapled wraps. First ed. WASHINGTON (DC). Corcoran Gallery of Art. 16th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting. 1939. Juried group exhibition. Included: Allan Rohan Crite. The first recorded exhibition of a work by an African American artist at the Corcoran, who presumably exhibited the work without knowing that it was by a black artist. Lois Mailou Jones and other Washington artists have stated that it was the unofficial policy of the Corcoran to discriminate against black artists. WASHINGTON (DC). Howard University Gallery of Art. American Art from the Howard University Collection. Howard University, 2000. Narration by Tritobia Benjamin. A selection from the collection at Howard University of over 4500 works. Includes primarily 19th and 20th-century (pre-1950) African American art. The works selected address one or more of the following themes: Forever Free: Emancipation Visualized, The First Americans, Training the Head, Hand and the Heart, The American Portrait Gallery, American Expressionism, and Modern Lives, Modern Impulses. A production on CD-ROM by Howard University Television (WHUT-TV), Howard University Radio (WHUR-FM) and Information Systems and Services. Black artists include: William Artis, Edward M. Bannister, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Skunder Boghossian, Hilda Wilkinson Brown, Samuel J. Brown, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles C. Davis, Aaron Douglas, David Driskell, Robert Duncanson, Sam Gilliam, Isaac Hathaway, May Howard Jackson, Malvin Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Edmonia Lewis, Archibald J. Motley, Lenwood Morris, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Faith Ringgold, John Robinson, Charles Sallee, Augusta Savage, Charles Sebree, William H. Simpson, Albert A. Smith, William E. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Laura Wheeler Waring, James Weeks, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Franklin White, Walter J. Williams, George L. Wilson, Hale Woodruff. CD-ROM WASHINGTON (DC). Howard University Gallery of Art. Art of the American Negro. October 31-November 15, 1937. Exhib. cat., brief biogs. Group exhibition curated by Alonzo Aden. Included: Robert(?, presumably Edward M.) Bannister, Hilda Brown, Allen Crite, Samuel Countee, Aaron Douglas, Elton Fax, Allan Freelon, Edwin Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Henry Hudson, Henry B. Jones, Malvin Gray Johnson, William H. Johnson, Archibald Motley, James A. Porter, Dan Terry Reid, William Simpson, Charles Sallee, Charles Sebree, William E. Scott, Henry O. Tanner, George Walker, Annie Walker, Laura Waring, James Lesesne Wells, Hale Woodruff. WASHINGTON (DC). Howard University Gallery of Art. Mixing Metaphors: The Aesthetic, the Social and the Political in African American Art. August 14-December 17, 2010. Exhib. cat., illus. Group traveling exhibition. Curated by Deborah Willis - a selection from the Bank of America collection. 94 photographs, paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and mixed media executed by 37 artists ranging from range from photographers Ernest C. Withers, Robert Sengstacke, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Chuck Stewart, Gordon Parks, Dawoud Bey, Carrie Mae Weems, and James VanDerZee to Henry Clay Anderson, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Willie Birch, Beverly Buchanan, Walter Cade, Kevin E. Cole, Robert Colescott, Allan Rohan Crite, Allan Edmunds, Lawrence Finney, Sam Gilliam, Earlie Hudnall, Margo Humphrey, Jacob Lawrence. Willie Little, Juan Logan, Whitfield Lovell, Julie Mehretu, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, Mario A. Robinson, Raymond Saunders, Leo Twiggs, James W. Washington, William T. Williams, and Fred Wilson. [Traveled to: The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum, Atlanta, GA, March 19-July 31, 2011.] WASHINGTON (DC). Library of Congress. Seventy Five Years of Freedom: Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943. Mostly an annotated list of books and manuscripts on black history, however it also includes remarks on the exhibition curated by Alonzo Aden, and list of exhibitors (pp. 39-43). Included: Frank H. Alston, John Ingliss Atkinson, Henry Avery, Romare Bearden, Bob Blackburn, Samuel Brown, William S. Carter, Claude Clark, Sr., Eldzier Cortor, Samuel A. Countee, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Charles C. Davis, Selma Day, Joseph Delaney, Aaron Douglas, Elba Lightfoot DeReyes, Walter W. Ellison, John S. Glenn, Bernard Goss, Palmer Hayden, Fred Hollingsworth, Humbert Howard, Wilmer Jennings, Malvin G. Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Ronald Joseph, Joseph Kersey, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Edward Loper, John Lutz, Archibald Motley, James A. Porter, Georgette Seabrooke Powell, Angelica Pozo, Bryant Ringle, Charles Salee, William E. Scott, Charles Sebree, Raymond Steth, Dox Thrash, Earl Walker, James W. Washington, Jr., James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff. WASHINGTON (DC). National Museum of American Art. Descriptive Catalogue of Painting and Sculpture in the National Museum of American Art. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1983. Of historical interest. As of October 31, 1982, the holdings included (multiple works indicated in paretheses): Edward Bannister, Ed Bereal, Claude Clark, Sr., Eldzier Cortor, Allan Rohan Crite (2), Emilio Cruz (3), Joseph Delaney, William Edmondson, Minnie Evans, Sam Gilliam (7), James Hampton, Palmer Hayden, Felrath Hines, Richard Hunt, Malvin Gray Johnson (2), Sargent Claude Johnson, William H. Johnson (177) Jacob Lawrence, Charles Searles, Henry O. Tanner, Alma Woodsey Thomas, (26), Bob Thompson (5), Laura Wheeler Waring (2), and Ellis Wilson. [For a fuller picture of the national holdings of African American art at this time see also National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Permanent Collection Illustrated Checklist.] WASHINGTON (DC). National Museum of American Art. Free Within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art. 1992. 205 pp., over 100 illus., 90 in excellent color, bibliog., list of works, checklist of 105 artists represented in National Museum of American Art. Curated and text by Regenia A. Perry. 32 artists discussed: Edward Mitchell Bannister, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Frederick J. Brown, Elizabeth Catlett, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Minnie Evans, Sam Gilliam, James Hampton, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, Joshua Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Frank Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Edmonia Lewis, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Keith Morrison, Marilyn Nance, James A. Porter, Augusta Savage, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Bill Traylor, Hale Woodruff, and Joseph Yoakum. Other artists mentioned as part of the collection, but not featured: Leroy Almon, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Steve Ashby, Ed Bereal, Wendell T. Brooks, Samuel Joseph Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Richard Burnside, Claude Clark, Houston Conwill, Eldzier Cortor, Emilio Cruz, William Dawson, Hilliard Dean, Roy DeCarava, Joseph Delaney, Richard Dempsey, Arthur "Pete" Dilbert, John Edward Dowell, Jr., Melvin Edwards, Frederick Eversley, Josephus Farmer, Walter Flax, Roland L. Freeman, Herbert Gentry, William Hawkins, Felrath Hines, Lonnie Holley, Margo Humphrey, Mr. Imagination, Keith Jenkins, Malvin Gray Johnson, Larry Francis Lebby, Norman Lewis, Ed Loper, Richard Mayhew, Eric Calvin McDonald, Lloyd McNeill, Robert McNeill, Inez Nathaniel-Walker, Joseph Norman, Leslie Payne, Elijah Pierce, Howardena Pindell, Michael Platt, Earle Richardson, John N. Robinson, Nellie Mae Rowe, Charles Sallee Charles Searles, Charles Sebree, Frank Smith, Edgar Sorrells-Adewale, Henry Speller, Raymond Steth, Lou Stovall, Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Mildred Thompson, Dox Thrash, Mose Tolliver, Laura Wheeler Waring, James W. Washington, Jr., Edward B. Webster, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Franklin A. White, George W. White, Jr., Ellis Wilson, Richard Yarde, Kenneth Young. [Traveled to: Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, NY; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN; The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA.] Small 4to, cloth, dust jacket. First ed. WASHINGTON (DC). National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute. Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory. April 2-August 22, 1999. Group exhibition. Included: Allan Rohan Crite ("Boston Street Scene" 1937.) WASHINGTON (DC). Smithsonian Museum of American Art. African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond. April 27-September 3, 2012. 252 pp. exhib. cat., illus. Text by Richard J. Powell, Virginia Mecklenburg, Theresa Slowik. Curated by Virginia Mecklenburg. Paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by 43 black artists, a total of 100 works drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection, including new acquisitions. [Will travel to: Muscarelle Museum of Art, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, September 28, 2012-January 6, 2013; Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL, February 1-April 28, 2013; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, June 1-September 2, 2013; Albuquerque Museum of Art, Albuquerque, NM, September 29, 2013-January 19, 2014; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN, February 14-May 25, 2014; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, June 28-September 21, 2014; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, October 18, 2014-January 4, 2015.] 4to (12 x 10 in.), cloth, d.j. First ed. WASHINGTON (DC). Smithsonian Museum of American Art. African American Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. New York: Abrams, 2003. 112 pp., 52 color plates, bibliog., index. Text by Gwen Everett. Includes: Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, John T. Biggers, Allan Rohan Crite, Roy DeCarava, Beauford Delaney, Melvin Edwards, Roland Freeman, Sam Gilliam, Russell T. Gordon, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Norman Lewis, Whitfield Lovell, Robert McNeill, Gordon Parks, Horace Pippin, James Porter, Betye Saar, Renée Stout, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Alma Thomas, James Vanderzee, Hale Woodruff, Purvis Young, et al. [Traveled to: New-York Historical Society, April 1-June 1, 2003, Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN, June 28-September 7, 2003, cumme*r Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, October 2-November 30, 2003, Cincinnati Art Museum, January 8-March 7, 2004, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH, April 3-June 7, 2004, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, July 2-September 5, Long Beach Museum of Art, October 3-November 28, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT, January 8-February 28, 2005, Spelman College Museum of Fine Arts, Atlanta, GA, March 24-May 13, 2005.] Sq. 4to (25 cm.), cloth, d.j. First ed. WATERVILLE (ME). Colby College Art Museum. Freedom of Expression: Politics and Aesthetics in African American Art. March 4-June 13, 2010. Group exhibition. Included: Edward M. Bannister, Romare Bearden, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jean Lacy, Jacob Lawrence, Glenn Ligon, Martin Puryear, Alison Saar, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Bob Thompson, James Vanderzee, Mr. Imagination, Charles White, Fred Wilson, Hale Woodruff. WELD, ALISON, ed. Art by African Americans in the Collection of the New Jersey State Museum. Trenton: The New Jersey State Museum, 1998. 159 pp., b&w and color illus., chronology of Black America (by Larry Greene), selected general bibliog., checklist of 170 works. Foreword by David C. Driskell; individual biographical texts (some with footnotes) and full-page color plate for each of the 60 artists by Alison Weld (curator), Sharon Patton, Margaret Rose Vendryes, Tritobia H. Benjamin, James Smalls, Carl E. Hazlewood, Calvin Reid, and Ronne Hartfield. Artists included in this selection: Uthman Ibn Abdur-Rahmen, Terry Adkins, Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Anthony Barboza, Romare Bearden, Frank Bowling, Wendell T. Brooks, James Andrew Brown, Selma Burke, Willie Cole, Allan Rohan Crite, Victor Davson, Roy DeCarava, Nadine DeLawrence, Thornton Dial, Sr., Robert S. Duncanson, William Edmondson, Melvin Edwards, Minnie Evans, Sam Gilliam, Rex Goreleigh, Gladys Grauer, Renée Green, Larry Hilton, Milton Hinton, Lonnie Holley, Diane Horn, Manuel Hughes, Richard Hunt, Joshua Johnson, Ben Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, James Little, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Thomas Malloy, John Moore, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Joe Overstreet, Lorenzo Pace, Gordon Parks, Janet T. Pickett, Horace Pippin, P.H. Polk, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Mei Tei-Sing Smith, Chuck Stewart, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Dox Thrash, Bill Traylor, James VanDerZee, Shawn Walker, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff. An exhibition of the same name (September 19-December 31, 1998) was organized to accompany publication of the catalogue. 4to (28 cm.), wraps. First ed. WEST NYACK (NY). Rockland Center for the Arts. African-American Printmaking, 1838 to the Present. October 8-November 19, 1995. 26 pp. exhib. cat., 9 b&w illus., brief but substantial biogs. of each artist, full exhib. checklist. Text by Harry Henderson. Group exhibition. Co-curated by Cynthia Hawkins and Lena Hyun. Included 74 works by 46 artists: Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John T. Biggers, Camille Billops, Bob Blackburn, Marvin Brown, Vivian E. Browne, Selma Burke, Margaret Burroughs, Nanette Carter, Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Allan Rohan Crite, Melvin Edwards, Elton Fax, Allan R. Freelon, Robin Holder, Margo Humphrey, Wilmer Jennings, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Ronald Joseph, Mohammad Omer Khalil, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Alvin D. Loving, William Majors, Richard Mayhew, Stephanie Pogue, Patrick Reason, Faith Ringgold, Aminah Brenda L. Robinson, Albert A. Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Raymond Steth, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mildred Thompson, Dox Thrash, James Lesesne Wells, Charles White, Michael Kelly Williams, William T. Williams, John Wilson, and Hale Woodruff. Oblong 8vo, stapled pictorial wraps. First ed. WINTZ, CARY D. and PAUL FINKELMAN, eds. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Routledge, 2004. An obvious inadequate allowance of space for the visual arts in the general subject entries. Only those artists allotted a biography entry receive any serious attention at all. Includes: Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, William E. Braxton, Samuel Countee, Allan Rohan Crite, Beauford Delaney, Aaron Douglas, William McKnight Farrow, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Edwin A. Harleston, Palmer Hayden, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Augusta Savage, William Edouard Scott, Frank Sheinall, Albert A. Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, James Vanderzee, Hale Woodruff. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was born March 20, 1910, at 190 Grove Street, North Plainfield, NJ. As far as my memory of the place is concerned, I'll be a little bit vague because I left there when I was less than a year old, and came to Boston. But I did go back just recently, during the month of December, so I had a chance to see my birthplace -- the house is still standing. It's a funny little two-storey frame house, on a tree-lined street. ROBERT BROWN: Why did your parents bring you up here [Boston]? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, I brought my parents to Boston (both laugh). I really don't know, exactly. My father was studying at Cornell University, and then I think he came and went to the University of Vermont. I think my mother, when she came to Boston, worked out in Danvers for some wealthy family there. They felt as though the atmosphere in Massachusetts probably would be a little better, or something like that; I'm not too sure. Anyway, Dad went to the University of Vermont for about a year, and then we settled in Boston. ROBERT BROWN: He was an engineer, wasn't he? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He started out as a doctor. Then he switched to engineering for some reason or other. He got a first-class engineer's license about 1923, I think. He may have been one of the first black people to get an engineer's license in Massachusetts -- I don't think he was the first, but one of the first. There aren't too many of them floating around. It's rather difficult to get an engineer's license in Massachusetts anyhow -- it has the reputation for being very thorough, very tough. So it's quite an accomplishment. ROBERT BROWN: He was a good deal older than your mother, right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, he was 35 when he married my mother; she was 18 at the time. I think they got married on June 5, because his birthday came on June 7 and he wanted to reduce the span of years as much as possible. [RB laughs] So 35 and 18 sounded a little better than 36 and 18, I guess. [Both laugh] ROBERT BROWN: What do you remember of him? Your father died long before your mother did . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. He died in 1937. Well, the impression I have of him is of a very powerful and very strong person. He may have had some frustrations, in a way. He was an engineer. He had some interest in my work . . . [Interruption: ringing telephone] ROBERT BROWN: You said the black community in Boston was scattered, and it was fairly small, but you were just beginning to tell me how it was highly structured in social terms. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, we had the equivalent of "the blue book," you might say, which was made up of professional people. My dad could qualify for that and some people got after him. But Dad was a bit of a loner. He didn't seem to take much to "this social business," in a way. And probably I've inherited a little bit of that from him, I don't know. ROBERT BROWN: On the other hand, was your mother a would-be "joiner?" Did she like clubs and other such activities? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes and no. She was very much into the church, the Episcopal church; and she did work in the Shaw House, the settlement house. She did a lot of work there. But she wasn't one of these people to join a whole lot of clubs -- the only clubs she was [in] was the mother's club at the Shaw House. Then of course she worked in the Episcopal church. She was a person of extraordinary intellectual curiosity. She went over to Harvard University and became involved in the extension courses over there. She went there for about half a century, as a matter of fact, attending lectures and things like that. She never took exams, and some of the professors were a little bit exasperated with her [laughing] because they wanted her to take exams. But she had kind of a psychological block there. Anyhow, she got after me and I went over to the extension courses. I got my degree of Bachelor of Arts in extension studies in 1968. I'm still associated with the extension studies at Harvard through the Library. So, in a way, the name of Crite has been associated with the Extension School at Harvard University for practically its entire existence. Which is a record of some sorts, I guess. ROBERT BROWN: How was regular school itself, when you were a child -- was that a big part of your childhood? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, the same part as any other child, I guess. ROBERT BROWN: Was it something you liked? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] It was something I tolerated, just like any other youngster, I should imagine. ROBERT BROWN: Well, being something of a loner, I guess you maybe didn't like very much being around so many other people. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, when I used the term "loner," that didn't mean I was anti-social. I had a certain preoccupation because I was drawing. So I was a loner from the standpoint of an observer. But that didn't mean I was anti-social -- I had a whole lot of friends, I still do, as a matter of fact. I have a relatively active life, and anybody looking at my guestbook-diary -- usually people remark, when sometimes I say that I'm a lonesome old man, "You can't prove it by this." [Both laugh] They say, "You have more visitors than any two people." And of course, that's what happens. A lot of young people come and I'm working with them on projects. Like last night I was working on a slide-tape presentation this girl has to make relative to what you might call a study of the South End -- rather, a study of Columbus Avenue. So she was synchronizing slides with her tape. I have some equipment here. ROBERT BROWN: You're really able to contribute to that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: You went to the Children's Art Center here in the South End. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I went there when I was about 10 or 11 or 12. what happened then was, one of my teachers at the School -- her name was Miss Brady -- she got hold of my mother and said that "this boy has some talent, you ought to take him over to the Children's Art Center," which had just started up then. That's at 36 Rutland Street. It was started, I think, by a Mrs. Perkins, Elizabeth Ward [?] Perkins, and also a Mr. Charles Herbert Woodbury, who's a famous watercolorist . . . . ROBERT BROWN: A very well-known painter. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, he was. ROBERT BROWN: Were they the teachers? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, they were more or less the founders, you might say, of the Art Center. Mr. Woodbury did have some few of us out to his studio, and we made some drawings from movies. It was of they were trying. ROBERT BROWN: You mean you'd sit in a movie and make drawings while it was on? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. They had what is called a daylight screen, I guess. They had movies of animals and things so we could make some drawings from that. ROBERT BROWN: What was the intention of that, do you suppose? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE To sharpen our vision. ROBERT BROWN: You had to work fast, didn't you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE More or less, yes. I just vaguely remember that. But we used to make trips up to the Isabel Stewart/Jack Gardner palace. I remember going there. Of course, the collection they have there is just a blaze of color, the courtyard. I made several drawings. One of them was sent to Mrs. Gardner and she was rather pleased -- she was still alive at the time, this was before 1924 (I think she died that year). My mother tells me -- she came out with a group of children from the Art Center, and Mrs. Gardner saw her and asked her to come in and sit down and have a cup of tea with her, so she did. That's one of those little pleasant incidents -- sitting and having tea with this rather fabulous woman. My mother recalls that she seemed rather sad. I suppose Mrs. Gardner may have had her moments of sadness -- I think she lost her only child; she was incapable of children. And the palace was, I suppose, a kind of substitute, in a way. But, at any rate, it was my introduction to the place. And, as I said before, I just remember this blaze of glory, of color, of flowers and the streaming down in the courtyard; and then of course the mysterious nooks and corners, with bits of Italian paintings and carvings . . . . ROBERT BROWN: You were saying you were struck by the color . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, that's what I remember. ROBERT BROWN: Your mother had been taking you, at an even earlier age, to the Museum of Fine Arts too, is that right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I practically grew up in the place. ROBERT BROWN: You mean you'd go there like on a Saturday after school . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, Saturday and Sunday classes in drawing. Then, of course, I went there with my mother -- she took me there often in a baby carriage. All I just remember is the Museum was there, and I was there, and, as I said before, I practically grew up there. ROBERT BROWN: When you were a little fellow with your mother, would you spend quite a lot of time there, do you think -- several hours? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I can't remember that . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Well, when you were a bit older, did you . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Then of course I went on my own. I went to the classes . . . they had children's classes. ROBERT BROWN: Who taught those, do you remember? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Gosh, you're talking about, what, 50 years ago. ROBERT BROWN: Were they pretty good classes? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: You learned quite a lot? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, I did. Then of course I went to the high school vocational art classes, which were held in the Museum. I remember some of my teachers there -- there was a Miss Labreck [phon. sp.], she was still alive; and then there was Miss Alice J. Morse [phon. sp.]; and quite a few others. I think Miss Morse was connected with the Museum school. Through the high school vocational art classes I did get a scholarship to the Museum school. It came at a kind of interesting time. I had been admitted to the Yale School of Art and so forth, which was rather surprised at my scholarship -- my marks in the college board exams were rather poor; they were very poor, as a matter of fact. ROBERT BROWN: Was this . . . when? The Late 20's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, 1929. ROBERT BROWN: Had you gone down to Yale to look it over? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, did the whole thing by correspondence. I got my letter of admission, by sending in my records and At that time I got a scholarship to the Museum school, so I voted to go to the Museum school. And it was rather lucky that I did, because if I'd gone down to Yale I'd have had a problem, because my dad took ill, and that sort of shock [Transcriber's note: New Englanders customarily call a "stroke" a "shock".], shock with cerebral hemorrhage -- a massive cerebral hemorrhage -- should have killed him but it didn't; it disabled him. So Mother and I had about 210 pounds of man to deal with for sever years. He died in '37. So I stayed at the Museum school on scholarships. ROBERT BROWN: Because you'd had these Saturday classes, did you get to begin a little ahead of the people who came in green? At the Museum school? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Nobody came to the Museum school green. ROBERT BROWN: Most of them had had some training? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. These people are screened to go into the school. Everybody who went to that school had some talent. ROBERT BROWN: What were you required to do when you began there, do you remember? It was a long program, wasn't it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I remember some charcoal drawing of statues. Then after that we did some life drawings. ROBERT BROWN: What did you enjoy most? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [After some hesitancy] I liked the whole business. Of course, the charcoal drawing was a bit dreary, because I'd had several years of cast drawing before. Then of course it got into life drawings. ROBERT BROWN: Did you enjoy that -- you liked that more than the drawing from plaster casts? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, naturally, doing something which is living. I took two courses -- the course in Drawing & Painting, and also the course in Design. So I completed two courses at the school -- they're two separate things; I got a diploma in either course. ROBERT BROWN: What did Design consist of, then? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Industrial design, fabrics, interiors . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Who were some of your fellow students at the school? Were there some of them that you've kept up with that stuck with art? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE As a matter of fact I haven't kept up with hardly any of them. There's only one person -- Ralph Rosenthal, who was at one time head of the art department in the school system in Boston, I believe. He just recently retired. Some of the others I haven't seen hardly at all. Edna Hibble: I hear about her but I haven't seen her. I think she has a gallery on Newbury Street. And there's a chap, Victor Mullo [phon. sp.], I used to see him every once in a while -- he was a guard at -- was it the Jack Gardner Palace, or the Museum? ROBERT BROWN: He'd been a student at the art school? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Some of the others [He mentions 3 names, two unclear to attempt]. ROBERT BROWN: Were you fairly close to some of the teachers? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes and no. I mean, to some of the teachers I was. When I first went there, there was a chap named Philip Hale, he was head of the Painting department, and I think he was the son of Edward Everett Hale, the famous author. Philip Hale was quite a character. ROBERT BROWN: In what way? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, he was sort of brusque; a rather kindly sort of person, but he was of the old academic school. Then when he joined his ancestors, we had a couple of teachers from the Slade School in London, I think a Mr. Guthrie, a Mr. Burns. They held forth in the painting dept. for about four years. After they left, we had a rather exciting person by the name of Alexander Yakovlev [phon. sp.]. He was an arts anthropologist. Russian- born. And this type of drawing was something like Botticelli, only just translated into modern terms. He had a great deal of virtuosity -- he could make a full-size life drawing in about a couple of hours. We would just stand around watching open-mouthed. He wandered all over the place -- he'd come back from these different expeditions: back from the Gobi Desert, or North Africa; and bring back portfolios of drawings of the Tuaregs and other peoples of North Africa or some of the people in Tibet or something like that. I think he was with the first Sitran [phon. sp.] motorcade across the Sahara; this was back in the 30's, of course. He died unexpectedly of cancer, on the operating table. He was a relatively young man then, probably in his 50's. At any rate, I was there during his regime and I left during his regime. The experience was extraordinary. I had the experience of actually going to three different schools while still in the same building, and under three different regimes and three different disciplines. I think all the artists, all the students who had that particular experience did rather well for themselves. ROBERT BROWN: You mean you feel it was very useful to have had this breadth of training and outlook? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. The school itself was going through quite a few changes at the time. ROBERT BROWN: How did the two men from England teach? What was their approach? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, they were very precise, and a great deal of detail. As far as color was concerned, there were sober, quiet colors, as I recall. ROBERT BROWN: Did Yakovlev put the emphasis on drawing? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, yes. His coloring was rather sober in many ways; he'd go in for more or less quiet colors, as I recall. But in his conte crayon drawings, they were very bold and very striking. ROBERT BROWN: What sort of things were you doing by the end of your time there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, making illustrations for spirituals -- black-and-white brush drawings. And then, of course, documentaries of black and white people, just as ordinary human beings. See, back there in the 30's, the concept of blacks was usually of somebody up in Harlem, or the sharecropper from the deep south, or what you might call the jazz Negro. There was a sort of Harlem Renaissance going on. But the ordinary person -- you might say middle-class -- you just didn't hear about them. So what I did in my drawings was just to try to do the life of people as I saw them round about me; in the streets, and a sort of neighborhood painting scenes. They turned out to be historic, because what I did, I painted these various streets which of course have vanished. A whole way of life has vanished. Now I find the paintings have considerable value as documents. ROBERT BROWN: But you were, even then, attracting the attention of other artists, weren't you? And collectors? You mentioned that through the architect Walter Kellum [phon. sp.] you became involved with the Society of Independent Artists here in Boston. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Could you describe that a bit? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. There was this Society of Independent Artists. They had an annual, non-juried show, as a way of introducing newer talent to the art public. The exhibitions were of course uneven -- you had some sub-professional and some professional work. They had the exhibitions in a place called a bar on Joy/Joyce Street. Walter Kellum became interested in my work and, as a matter of fact, I worked up at his farm-estate for about a year or so, a lot of it in one summer. ROBERT BROWN: In New Hampshire. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. In Tamworth. He suggested I join the Boston Society, so I did. I received a very favorable interview, rather, a review, of my work -- I think it was about 1929 or 30, no, it was later than that, around the 30's. It was a painting called "I'm Settling the World's Problems." That was reviewed by the distinguished art critic, Mr. Cochran [phon. sp.] of the Boston Transcript. Usually, when he introduced you to the art world, you had it made, as it were. ROBERT BROWN: What was it in that painting that struck him? What was the painting about? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well it was just a group of people sitting in a park, Madison Park as a matter of fact, discussing the world's problems. The painting has been lost. I sold it during the Depression and I don't know where it is now. The only record I have of it is the newspaper clips of it. What I did recently is to take the newspaper clips and reconstruct the drawing and made it into an offset print on which I did some watercoloring. So I have what you might call an offset print/watercolor. That's on exhibit now at Government House exhibit now, from Jan. 14 through February 10. ROBERT BROWN: Did you get to know some other, perhaps slightly older artists, through the Society of Independent Artists? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I sort of ran into quite a few of them. ROBERT BROWN: Did you become fairly friendly or close to some of them? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Not really. There were people whom I know -- I'm trying to remember their names. One person, I think, by the name of Pepper . . . ? ROBERT BROWN: Charles Holly [?] Pepper? That would be a much older man. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE And then there was another artist named Hopkinson, I think. ROBERT BROWN: Charles Hopkinson? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Both have bought some of my things, as time went on. And the Grace Horn [?] Galleries became interested. As a matter of fact, they became my semi-patrons, in a way; I don't say handled my work. Back in those days, for an artist to be on Newbury Street, where the Grace Horn Galleries was, was unusual, and I think I was probably the only black artist who had any gallery working for him at that time. ROBERT BROWN: Were there many other black artists, though, at that time here? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Very, very few. As a matter of fact, the only professional black artist I can recall back in those days is a chap by the name of Romaine Lipman/Litman [sp?]. ROBERT BROWN: Being black, would that have been an impediment to your getting into these galleries? On Newbury Street, at that time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That I wouldn't know. I would assume that it might be. The only thing that I know is that the Grace Horn Galleries did have me, and that black artists are conspicuous by their absence. There just weren't very many of them. The situation was much different then than today -- today we have a plethora, you might say, of very talented black artists in the city. And, as a matter of fact, there's a good possibility that we might have a Boston Renaissance somewhat similar to the Harlem Renaissance, the difference being that the Harlem Renaissance was more supported by the government because that was during the WPA period. And it was more or less literary. And the Boston Renaissance, should it come, would be more in the graphic arts. And I think that Northeastern University with its artist-in-residence program, and they give them all that studio space up on Leon [?] Street, is one of the most exciting things that's happening. ROBERT BROWN: Did you work with Grace Horn at her gallery? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, I think Grace Horn herself had probably retired, but the gallery carried her name. ROBERT BROWN: Who did you work with there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The person who ran the gallery was named, I think, Margaret Brown. She's gone to her reward. ROBERT BROWN: Yes, who later had her own gallery. Do you recall her, or the other people? Would they come to your studio to look and see what you had done? Or did you take things over there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I took things over to the Grace Horn Gallery. Now, this Margaret Brown I refer to is not the Margaret Brown the painter . . . . ROBERT BROWN: I know. The gallery-owner. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE There's another person by the name of Rideout [sp?], and one other person's name I can't recall. All of them have gone to their reward. ROBERT BROWN: You submitted things to that gallery over a number of years. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. They gave me several one-man shows. These are the neighborhood paintings. One of them was sold. I didn't sell very many things. During the same period, I put out a couple of books . . . I made the drawings for the books which were later published by Harvard University Press. That took place 1944 and '48. ROBERT BROWN: Your drawings . . . from spirituals were done in the 1930's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Were they published . . . were they done . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. You see, the drawings of the spirituals were done in '36, in the '30's. They weren't published until the '40's. It was quite a formative period, I guess. I was going through several changes. ROBERT BROWN: You mean changes in your style, or in the . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Outlook, I guess. I went through what you might call a Catholic revival. You'd understand that if one would look into the history of the Anglican Church. You note there was a period of Catholic Revival that took place in the 1830's. In a sense I went through a similar kind of experience. I was a "low churchman" and of course I became a "high churchman." I don't like the terms, but anyway, I guess that's the best way of describing it. ROBERT BROWN: Why? You find the terms are kind of meaningless? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They're meaningless today. ROBERT BROWN: Did this mean that you became much more devout, or much more concerned with liturgy? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I became much more interested in liturgy. 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. ROBERT BROWN: You wrote about that -- those illustrated spirituals -- in 1938. You said you did them to express a sense of an absolute faith in God "which made it possible for my people to worship," and so forth -- to carry on their life. You feel that the spirituals did that, or had done that, at least? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. You see, spirituals are a form of oral tradition. And so it enables people to know something about the Bible, folks who didn't have the opportunity to learn how to read. And then the other things, of course, about the spirituals is that they were used sort of like a code. If was going to escape, or something like that, you'd use the spirituals in that way. The River Jordan might be the Ohio River, something like that. There were several purposes. And then of course the music was an idea of fighting against the impersonality of slavery, or rather the de-personalization in an institution such as slavery. We could use the spirit of the spiritual today, because this age of technology that we have is non-human in many ways. We need to have something to express our humanity. The message of the spirituals was really just that, so it goes beyond an incident in history which we call "slavery," as far as this country is concerned. ROBERT BROWN: Were your parents interested in spirituals, things of that sort? Was this a product of your own study, or was it naturally around you in church or in jazz forms? Or course, you differ, I think - - you've said that jazz is not spirituals . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, they're not. The resemblance between the two is the element of syncopation that one might get. But the spirituals served a definite purpose. As far as their being in the church is concerned, of course you don't get spirituals in the Anglican Church. You get that more in some of the evangelical churches. ROBERT BROWN: You're familiar with them, too? You'd go to them? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, occasionally. I never heard the spirituals in a real setting. They used to have these huge camp meeting grounds in a place called Darby, in the outskirts of Philadelphia. These camp meetings were huge affairs -- you'd get a choir of about a thousand people singing these spirituals. This was back around the turn of the century. ROBERT BROWN: This was when your mother was growing up down there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. These people, of course, a lot of them had had the experience of slavery -- this was around 1910. People around 70 or 80 would have had that experience. So, therefore, the way they sang was much different than today. When you have a choir of about a thousand people singing these, you get a much different impression than you do today on a concert stage of something else that is more or less "devised," you might say. ROBERT BROWN: Through the '30's now, -- I know in the '40's you began a long term of employment with the Navy. Before that, how were you supporting yourself? You were living with your mother? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. My mother had work. Dad was knocked out, of course. She had work. And, of course, I supported my schooling mostly on scholarships. My mother was criticized by a lot of people who'd say, "I'd take that boy out of school and put him to work." On a short-term basis, of course, they were correct. On a long-term basis, they couldn't be more wrong. I've earned my living by drawing, though I haven't earned my living as an artist in the limited sense, QUOTE/UNQUOTE. But I've earned my living by drawing. As an illustrator in the Navy Dept., of course, I had to use all the skills that I had learned in school. ROBERT BROWN: In the '30's, after you were out of school, did you work somewhere for those few years? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, I tried getting some work -- this was around '36, '37 . . . . ROBERT BROWN: The Depression was still bad. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. But by that time the war in Europe had started. They were getting into war work here. So I went into Civil Service, in the Navy. First I was of course at the Geodetic Survey. Then they transferred to Washington and I was transferred to the Navy Yard and stayed there for the duration. ROBERT BROWN: What sort of work did you do there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE First, I started as a draftsman. So I did a great deal of that. Then, as time went on, the engineers found out I could draw so they had me drawing. So if they got ideas of propulsion systems or anything like that, they'd come to me to make a perspective drawing. So I had to be well-acquainted with machinery and everything like that. They kept me busy doing that. ROBERT BROWN: Did you find that pretty interesting? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. It made me feel less schizophrenic [laughing] and I was the only person in the department that could do it. I could pretty well call my own shots. It was helpful. I looked upon my work in the Navy Dept. as a means towards an end of promoting myself as an artist. It gave me a more secure financial basis, in a way. It really helped me a great deal. ROBERT BROWN: You still had plenty of energy after you were through work to do your own . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, yes. I lived a relatively disciplined life, I guess, in that way. Then, of course, I was busy with lectures on liturgical art. They would give me time off to go off and do these various things for the church and stuff like that. ROBERT BROWN: How did you become a lecturer on liturgical art? Was this because of your interest in liturgy? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I am a liturgical artist. ROBERT BROWN: Did the Episcopal Church ask you to lecture? How did this come about? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I'd give talks in different parishes. They'd have exhibitions in the parishes and schools. There was a strong movement towards liturgical art in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, so I was tied up in that through Mrs. Perkinson [?], who was a Roman Catholic. So I came into contact with such people as and people like that. And back in those days, the . They were more or less interested in the English school of artists who were interested in liturgical art -- Eric Gill, people like that. So I was right in the middle of all that. We had a sort of liturgical art store . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Here in Boston? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I think it was the St. Botolph group to start off. I was very much involved in all of this. Then I became acquainted with Bryan Bush [?]. Then with McGinnis & Walsh . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Some of the big decorating and architectural, liturgical and ecclesiastical . . . . How did you . . . ? You began working in New York City for Arambush (Ambush [?]) Decorating Company. How did that come about? Did they contact you, or did they see examples of your work? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, they contacted me. It came at a rather fortunate time because I was laid off at the Navy Yard . . . it was just at the close of the War and there was a great reduction-in-force. So Arambush had me come down there. I worked in New York for about 14 months. Then, when I got through there, then the Navy called me back. ROBERT BROWN: So you always had this cushion. Had you worked for companies -- for architectural firms before this? Was this a new experience? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it was a new experience. ROBERT BROWN: How did you go about it? Would you consult a lot regularly with people at Arambush? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, I worked right in the company. For example, they'd get these commissions -- I did this mural decoration for St. Augustine's Church in Brooklyn . . . . [TAPE APPEARS TO STOP, THEN RESUME] ROBERT BROWN: Back to the work with Arambush Decorating Co., had you done . . . ? This was a very large mural, about 345 feet square, that you did for St. Augustine's Church in Brooklyn. Had you done mural work before? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, I hadn't. [Laughing] And I was scared to death when I did this one. ROBERT BROWN: That's an immense project. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it is. The largest thing I ever did -- the largest single thing I ever did. That Church was destroyed by fire in 1972. ROBERT BROWN: How did you set about it? Did you have the benefit of skilled workmen from the Company to assist you in . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, they gave me advice. I made several sketches and these were shown to the client. After that, I made scale drawings, and then I made a full-scale cartoon right in the office itself. Then they built a scaffolding at the Church, and then I went to work on the painting itself. I had to do the work all by myself. It took me about 38 days, actually, to do with painting -- adding all the times together. The total job probably took me about 80 days -- the research, preliminary sketches, and so forth. I did have a background, of course, of information because of all the classical studies and everything else that I had done in school, museums, etc. That wasn't a problem. I did a little bit of research on St. Augustine himself, getting points of his life, and so on. ROBERT BROWN: Did you find him an appealing subject? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. Challenging. After all, making a painting of a man 21 feet high is rather challenging. That was not the only thing I did with Arambush, however. Another thing I did was a ceiling, a baldocchino ceiling for the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C. ROBERT BROWN: A baldocchino ceiling? Painted on canvas? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no. I made up a design, and then the design was executed in cooper wire and then painted. So the person looking up at the ceiling from the altar would get the impression of cloisonné enamel. The pillars were designed and executed by a fellow named Gleb Derujinsky. The Monastery is something of a shrine in Washington. ROBERT BROWN: Did you work with Derujinsky? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: What was he like to work with? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Very friendly. I judge from his name he was Russian. He was a very friendly sort of person. The staff at Arambush, they were all skilled craftsmen. There was a sort of no-nonsense kind of business about it, and you really had to know your business. He didn't know it, and [Laughing] they knew it and they let him know it. The mural dept. is headed up by a German, I've forgotten his name. He really gave me a very rough time. ROBERT BROWN: Why? He didn't think you were skilled enough? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's the feeling I had. He sort of made me feel my place, [He laughs] in a sense. I was rather awed, in a way, because I was surrounded by all these highly skilled and developed people. I think most of them were Europeans. With that type of people you really have to know your business. They don't take anything less than excellence. It was very good training. I couldn't wish for anything better. It was rough going through it, but I look back at it with a bit of nostalgia in many ways. ROBERT BROWN: Then you did a project, also for them, in Detroit. Was that another mural? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it was. I was back in the Navy Dept. when I did that. I took about a couple of weeks off rather, took one week off. The first week I spent at home to get acquainted with the medium -- it was casein color. I made full-scale drawings. Then I flew out to Detroit and closeted myself in this particular chapel of the Oblate Order of the sisters of Providence. And I made these 14 stations paintings in less than a week. It was a very enjoyable experience -- it was something like a Retreat for me. The Sisters said their offices in English, and there is a sufficient amount of relation between the Anglican and the Roman so that I could more or less get the feeling of it. Every morning I went to Mass at the parish church, the Catholic parish church. Then I went directly from there to the convent. So it was practically a week's Retreat for me. And also I did a set of Stations in metal for Chapel in Washington. Then, also, the farmed another job to me -- stained glass for an Order, I think it's the Holy Family, in New Orleans, a Novitiate and a Mother House of a particular order. I did the work here in Boston, as far as that chapel was concerned. And the Stations -- I did that work in Boston. That was something which the people farmed out to me. Probably, if I'd lived a little closer -- I was living in New Haven or somewhere like that - they'd have sent more work out to me, but living in Boston it was just a little bit too far away. ROBERT BROWN: In the 1940's, you had begun publication . . . I think they were mostly based on spirituals or the liturgy, weren't they? "Were You There?" published by Harvard in 1944, and then in 1948 they published something called "Three Spirituals." ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: And then the, I think, Hyde Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist, 1948, published "All Glory." ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Which reminds me, I'm supposed to send out 25 [?] copies of that book. somebody in Hartford; I just got a little letter reminding me. ROBERT BROWN: These consisted of illustrations of spirituals or portions of the liturgical service . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, those are two separate things altogether. ROBERT BROWN: Why don't we take them in order? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE What I do with the spirituals is just take a hymn and break it down in its different phrases and just illustrate each phrase. In other words, I just tell the story of the words through pictures. In the book for the Society of St. John the Evangelist, I just took the Prayer of Consecration that we follow in the Anglican service, or mass, whatever, and illustrated that. I think it took about 20 drawings to do it. [Laughing] It took quite a bit of doing because it's one thing to go to mass and hear the prayer day in and day out, but then to sit down to visualize it -- that takes something else. One of the people at Harvard, Professor Kenneth Conant (no relation to the president) was an interesting person. He was a member of the Orthodox Church, I guess Greek Orthodox. Anyhow, he was interested in my work and he introduced me to Mr. Scaife [sp?], who was the editor of Harvard Press and the father, I believe of Bishop Scaife, of New York, I think, I can't remember offhand -- he's retired now anyhow but still with us. Conant suggested I illustrate the Prayer of Consecration. I did, and the drawings which I did are what you might call first-draft drawings. I intended to do the series over again, refining the drawings; I never did. [Laughing] It probably was just as well because the drawings have a certain amount of freshness and spontaneity, I imagine, that the first-draft thing would have. ROBERT BROWN: Conant said, "We'll take them as is?" ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. He said he would talk to the Society of St. John the Evangelist. And they got them published, I think it was by Shea [?] Brothers. They were fairly successful. ROBERT BROWN: This was work that you thought was quite important to do? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. Of course, I think the work I do is important for me. [Laughing] It was just another phase of my work. ROBERT BROWN: Although you have had, now, these commissions for this sort of thing, and also the work with Rambush [?], by and large even those things, the commissions, have been in areas that are of great interest to you, aren't they? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: You've been fortunate in that way, haven't you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I guess so, yes. ROBERT BROWN: You continued this work in the 50's when you did . . . I think by 1955 you got a multilith press which brought you into doing large and cheaply and expeditiously editions of your prints. Is that correct? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. What I did then, I started making bulletins for the church. When I first started, I used -- I can't think of the chap's name now -- he was a master printer and worked on a multilith press. So, at first I'd make up the drawings and he'd run them off on his press. Later on, I was able to use a small press at the St. John's Church, which was a Model 80, and we ran off the bulletins there. Then I was able to acquire my own press, a 1250, the machine that I have now. So that enabled me to do my own printing. A friend of mine thought that I should have my own equipment. I was wondering, "Gee, where in the world can I get it?" Even a factory- built press back in the 50's cost in the neighborhood of $1,900. What happened was that the Jesuits [?] were changing their 1250 for something else, so we picked it up on a trade-in, and I got it for less than $500. That was really a lucky break. It's an old machine -- as a matter of fact, it had D.C. motors when I picked it up, so I had A.C. motors put in, and so forth. And even today, when servicemen come to work on the machine, they say, "Boy, this is an old-timer. You hang on to it!" ROBERT BROWN: Had you done much printing before that? Making your own prints? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. I did some work on a mimeo graph machine, but the only printing I'd done prior to that was of linoleum blocks; which I still do. The offset press is, of course, lithography. So fairly recently I've been doing these sort of documentaries on the offset press, because we're making these in limited editions. ROBERT BROWN: That's this press you got in 1955? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Did you find it, as opposed to, say, linoleum block or woodcut or something that you'd done earlier, that this multilith was a much freer medium? You can sort of draw? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it is a freer medium for me to use, so it's just another medium, it just enlarges me . . . . ROBERT BROWN: And you enjoy them all? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: And you enjoy the more laborious as well as the less laborious? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Each has its own particular area of discipline. So one is not a substitute for another, it's just another addition to my arsenal, you might say. ROBERT BROWN: Do you think . . . is there a certain subject matter you prefer to do in lithograph as opposed to linoleum block, or painting? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE With linoleum block I do the ecclesiastical things; it fits more or less in that. I did do one or two secular things in linoleum but for me it isn't that type of medium. When I used linoleum, I used to think in terms of doing liturgical themes. With the multilith press, of course, I do liturgical things -- I've been doing these church bulletins -- but then I do other things -- secular things, etc. I've been going out into the streets and making drawings using the plate as a drawing pad, so I can make my drawings right on the spot. I did a whole series of things in the South End, and I've been doing some things down in "the combat zone" [where prostitutes openly pick up customers] which I've found a very interesting area in many ways, and I've done quite a few sketches down there. I can take this thing all around with me and make my drawings right on the spot. Then I come back and work on my drawings a lot more, for my press. I could run off about two or three thousand but of that type of drawing I purposely limit an edition to about 30 or 40 prints. Of course, with the church bulletins, I run off an average of 1,200 or so per Sunday, because I'm serving several parishes. About three here, one in Oregon, a couple out in Michigan, one in Washington, D.C. Sometimes I serve more, sometimes less. ROBERT BROWN: Do you find that the linoleum block, or the woodcut, is a more rigid form, isn't it? Do you find that it lends itself to more abstract liturgical or ecclesiastical art than does the lithograph? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I suppose so. ROBERT BROWN: I don't know whether I mean to say abstract -- it's more simplified. I can see your wood blocks are much more simplified than are your lithographs. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, it would have to be, because that's the nature of the material. Now, there's one thing: I've only done a few woodcuts, very few, but I've done quite a few linoleums. They look alike in many ways, as one looks at them . . . ROBERT BROWN: They do look very much alike. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE . . . the techniques are similar. The only difference is that linoleum is a little bit softer than wood, and I like it because I can work faster. ROBERT BROWN: Have you always worked fairly fast? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's what people seem to say. I do work quickly-- if you're making drawings out in the street, you do have to work rather quickly. Even when I make my watercolors and drawings outside, I work very quickly. I wasn't too aware of this until fairly recently. I'd been doing some life drawings here at the house -- this has been a recent development; I've always done life drawings, for a long period, but from 1944 to '77 I didn't do any, because there wasn't any opportunity unless I went to an art school. But now I've been able to have some of my friends come pose for me here at the house, different girls. I make life drawings of myself as far as male models are concerned. But they impressed me with the fact that I work so quickly. [Laughing] It never occurred to me to even think about it. The average drawing that I make of the girls would probably take about 20 minutes or something like that. If I make a portrait study, that might take a little longer. But it's very quick. ROBERT BROWN: Do you think this goes back to the way you were trained at the museum school? Or do you think it's to your own credit -- that you always had a facility with drawing? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Because you did have to do a lot of quick sketches and memory sketches at the museum school, no doubt. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I probably did. But the thing is, at the museum school they didn't stress speed. That was just something that was part of my own makeup. I've known some other artists who worked exactly the opposite -- they take a long time to develop their themes, etc. It just so happens that in my particular case I can work rather quickly, but that would have nothing to do with the training in school. ROBERT BROWN: Although they did have that type of drawing, didn't they? In the life class there? It wasn't, probably, stressed -- the main emphasis was on a very finished . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. That's the way it was in the days when I went to school. We did have one person who did some line drawings -- what are called "construction drawings," trying to express as much as you could with as few lines as possible. There was a great deal of that. ROBERT BROWN: You'd done, as a young boy, some stick drawings, I believe, that caught the attention of . . . there are some at the Addison Gallery in Andover. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. They're sort of stick-men drawings. The interesting thing about the drawings -- about my drawing in general -- is how little change there is in one sense. The compositions that I did at the age of 10 or 12, basically it's the same thing today. Of course, I've developed, but I mean there's a great deal of . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What was there that you wanted to achieve by your compositions that seems to have stuck with you? Do you notice some kind of emphasis, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't know. It's probably just something like handwriting. It's a certain style, I guess -- the way I massed my figures, the way I arranged things when I was a child, and still do. [END OF SIDE 1, TAPE 1] [TAPE 1, SIDE 2] ROBERT BROWN: This is the second interview with Alan Crite, in Boston, Massachusetts, March 1, 1979, Robert Brown the interviewer. ROBERT BROWN: We're looking right now at some childhood work, I think, beginning in the early 1920's. You were, I think, working on your own, weren't you? And to some extent, then, you were going to the Children's Art Center in the South End. Why don't we talk about this first one, which is a drawing colored with color pencil, I think. It's like a street scene . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE It is. I think I wrote on it -- it's from Brookline Street on Shawmut Avenue to 395 Shawmut Avenue, "Winter Scene in November 1930" and I signed my name "Alan Crite." In this drawing is the South End Branch of the Boston Public Library. My house is at 401 Shawmut Avenue. All of this is written down. ROBERT BROWN: You show the building, but there are no figures in it or, if there are, they are very minuscule. What were you, about 10 years old there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: You're interested in the buildings, their rooflines, I notice. This is viewed head-on. You're interested in the profile of the roofs, the openings, and any elaborate decoration around the entrances. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I stood across the street and made this drawing. The church is in the center here, or sort of right center; and that was the South End Branch of the Library. There used to be an Armenian church -- I think originally it was a Congregational church. This church and the two buildings on both sides form almost an architectural unit. ROBERT BROWN: Do you think you were aware of that as a 10-year-old, when you drew it? A very pleasing . . . you liked the buildings? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. [Laughing] Well, I lived there. You see, I lived at 401 Shawmut Ave. and I also practically lived in the Library, right next door. So it meant a great deal to me, a part of my formative period, you might say. ROBERT BROWN: I suppose it isn't possible to recall at this date, but what was your intention by this drawing? To show your parents? to make an accurate record of something around you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, I just wanted to make the drawing. I liked to draw, so I liked to draw things round about me. So, it was a record . . . . ROBERT BROWN: But you had a sheer delight in drawing. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I enjoyed doing it. It was a way of telling a story and so forth. This drawing was lost -- I came across it two or three years ago. It was a bit of a shock, in a way, to see it, because I'd forgotten I'd ever made the drawing. So it gave me a very vivid picture of that particular period in my life. Because, today, 401 Shawmut Avenue still exists, but the church, and 395 have been destroyed. The building on the left still exists. So I only have this drawing to give me some idea of an early scene of my childhood. ROBERT BROWN: This next one is, similarly, pencil, colored in, and it's another streetscape but much more complex. We're looking through end buildings down the backs of streets -- alleyways, I suppose. And, again, was your intention here more or less the same? This is a very familiar or local neighborhood? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. You see, what I did here, I just crossed the street and I turned around and I looked at this open lot, which was right off 401 Shawmut Avenue. This building on the right-hand side, the back view of it, that used to be a convent. Then you have this open lot here. I think at one time there was a fire station which of course wasn't in existence when I made this particular drawing. ROBERT BROWN: The neighborhood generally, though, was very built-up, was it? A lot such as you're looking at here in the foreground was the exception, was it? A vacant lot? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, it was. ROBERT BROWN: Did you like this environment? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Oh sure, I lived there. ROBERT BROWN: As a child, it was a pleasant place? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, you see, in the wintertime . . . this happened to be a winter scene, I think I called it "winter scene opposite 401 Shawmut Avenue, snowing, Nov. 21, 1920" -- I'm glad I wrote down these dates. [Both laugh] ROBERT BROWN: You were very concerned even then about being precise about . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Not as much as I should [Laughs] but occasionally I did. ROBERT BROWN: The colors here are quite bright -- yellows, greens, the red of the brick. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I tried an experiment: I used both of these drawings as the base for making a reconstruction of the area. ROBERT BROWN: You mean recently you did this? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Just sort of as a recollection of my childhood. It was a strange experience, because I felt as though I was going back -- you see, this is 1978, and it's going back almost half a century, or more than that, recalling all the things which took place. There's a little bit of the elevated over here on the right-hand side; you can just make that out. Of course, as I look at this drawing, I think of horse carriages, and the Holy Cross Cathedral is right nearby. And I think the Prince and Princess of Belgium came and heard Mass at the Cathedral. I think it was celebrated by Cardinal O'Connell. It was a big "do," in those days. ROBERT BROWN: Some of the vivid memories. The next thing you have here says, "To Dad from Alan, Christmas 1921." It looks like a medieval page or person blowing a trumpet with a banner on it. How did you get this idea? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE It's a copy. ROBERT BROWN: Did you do a lot of copying from illustrations in books and magazines? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I did that because it's good training. I made up this book for Dad -- I have the rest of the book in my hand. As a matter of fact, I made up two books. One was birds and animals, and the other was, I guess, general things. The birds and animals book was partially destroyed but the drawings are preserved and are now in the possession of the Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Art in Boston. ROBERT BROWN: Were you doing this for your dad because you wanted him to know what you were doing? Did he encourage you to do this? He was an engineer . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, he was an engineer? ROBERT BROWN: Was he interested in your doing this art work? You were now an 11-year-old boy . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, he thought I was pretty clever. He was interested. He had one experience with me, though. I made a drawing of an automobile and I didn't show any spokes in the wheels of the car, so he thought he'd help me out and put in the spokes in the wheels. And I looked at him rather reproachfully I said, "Dad, what did you stop my car for?" [Both laugh] And he said that finished him as far as . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Ha ha! Whereas he, as an engineer, was intent on showing every little part that he knew to be in the thing, whereas you were more interested in what it looked like when . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE It was in motion. ROBERT BROWN: But he was sympathetic to you and your work. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE To a degree. Later on, when I got into high school, he didn't have quite an understanding of it. But when I got into the museum school, he commenced to see what I was doing. But he did have a problem -- as an engineer, being a practical person; because he shared the attitude that a lot of people have: Can you make a living at it? ROBERT BROWN: The next thing we're looking at is a pencil drawing, an extraordinary one. It says "Mrs. John Gardner's Court from memory." A drawing of her Fenway Court, at that time still her house -- she died in 1924 -- and now a museum. Comment on this. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was at the Children's Art Center -- I have another sketch here of the Children's Art Center where I went from about eight to when I was 14 or so, maybe a little later. And so we used to have groups of people growing up from the Art Center to the Gardner palace. So I went there and it made quite an impression -- the color and so on, and I made these memory sketches, of which this is one. And one was sent to Mrs. Gardner, and the report was that she was rather pleased with it. There's a little footnote I suppose I could mention here. My mother went with us -- I think several parents went with the group of us children up to the palace -- and Mrs. Gardner saw my mother and she motioned for her to come in, and so my mother sat down and had tea with this frail little woman. It was quite an experience for my mother. And the impression she had of her was that Mrs. Gardner seemed to be so sad. This was about 1922 or 1923, something like that. I don't know whether her friend Sargent was still alive at the time or not, but I know they were very friendly. ROBERT BROWN: Did this kind of give a grim feeling to your mother about the place? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, no. She as very much impressed with the color and the beauty of the place. She was also impressed with the graciousness of Mrs. Gardner in having her to tea. ROBERT BROWN: You seem to have been impressed as a child in this drawing with details of various pieces of sculpture and architecture and all. Is that an accurate assessment? Were you interested in the details? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE From the looks of this drawing, I would say yes. It's pretty good -- I mean, so far as memory is concerned. ROBERT BROWN: A similar thing is borne out in your drawing, pencil drawing, of the Children's Art Center, and also this part of the old Back Bay Railroad Station, where you show the various architectural parts. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Now, at the Art Center, who did you work with there? Were there regular teachers? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Any artists involved there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Curators were there - I think one was a Miss Bramhall [sp?], another was a Miss Matlack . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Where were they curators from? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They were curators of the museum. You see, the Children's Art Center was a fine arts museum for children. It was founded, you might say, by Mrs. Elizabeth Ward Perkins. ROBERT BROWN: Was her friend, the painter, Charles Woodbury ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, he was very much involved. They were very much interested in my work. A group of us children -- if I can remember, I think there was Kohler [?], and there was a Maurice Kaplan in that group -- and we made some drawings of animals for motion pictures. This was an experimental kind of thing. I think we tried that out at Mrs. Perkins' home in Jamaica Plain. So I was practically a charter member of this art center. At the moment of this recording, we're preparing an exhibition of three of us at the art center -- three alumni, you might say. Not the three that I just mentioned; of other people. ROBERT BROWN: Would Woodbury come around and give some instruction once in a while? Because he was a fine watercolorist. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I think that happened in that particular case -- we went out to Mrs. Perkins' home and made up these drawings. He was the guiding spirit, you might say, behind the arts. I don't recall him going to the art center itself. ROBERT BROWN: This is looking back . . . you've been told that, and you realize that he was. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: What kind of teaching did you have there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE We had a group of teachers that came in, our teachers, who would give us ideas about drawing and so forth. ROBERT BROWN: What was their approach -- can you recall? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE This was a museum, as I mentioned before. So we had bits of sculpture -- we had some animal sculptures by Baer/Behr, I think it was, and some other very fine bits and pieces. And then, of course, there were the changing exhibitions, works of various artists, partly from the Newbury Street galleries, or from museums, etc. So we children had good professional examples to look at all the time. ROBERT BROWN: First-class things were brought to you. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: And then would you be set to drawing from them? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, we'd make drawings from that. Then we'd make imaginary drawings. And all kinds of things -- like, for example, this sketch here of the art center -- I probably sat out in the garden to make this particular drawing. ROBERT BROWN: That wouldn't be a typical drawing you made at the art center, would it? More typical would be a drawing from a painting or from a piece of sculpture? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. This would be typical, as far as I'm concerned. ROBERT BROWN: You were fairly well left to do what you wanted to do. This was a voluntary thing. It was after school hours? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, yes. But it was directed. We were given instructions as far as drawing and things like that were concerned. ROBERT BROWN: What were they like? Can you recall how they instructed you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, in drawing statues, you had to correct your proportions and stuff like that. ROBERT BROWN: Did you find that interesting? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Some people describe that type of copying -- drawing from a statue or a cast -- as kind of tedious. I suppose that, as a small child, you were pretty curious, weren't you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, you see, I had the same kind of thing at the Museum. They had children's classes at the Museum. ROBERT BROWN: At about the same time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. Like, Saturday drawing class; and I think they had some Sunday drawing classes. I think there still is a children's program at the Museum even today. ROBERT BROWN: Yes, there is. You've mentioned to me that one teacher you remember was a Miss LeBreck [phon. sp.]. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. She's still alive. She's well along in years and not in the best of health. She was more or less my high school teacher, I mean during the high school period. Also, there was a Miss Brady, who was a teacher in the seventh grade at the Rice [?] School. She was the one who called my mother and said, "This boy knows how to draw; why don't you send him over to the Children's Art Center?" which had just opened. ROBERT BROWN: This was the Rice Grammar School? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: So Miss Brady was the one who saw this talent. Were you probably drawing an awful lot of the time? Like in school, if you had a little spare time, you'd be possibly making a drawing? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. Then of course in the art classes, I was the star of the place. [Laughs] So Miss Brady was very much impressed. One of the important things about grammar school teachers or primary school teachers -- they're extremely important, I think; these early grades are extremely important. It's through these early grades that the child is introduced into the world in which he's going to live for the rest of his or her life. What kind of introduction he or she has will probably determine a great deal of what's going to happen to him. To make a point of that: when I first started in at public school, we went up to a school in Roxbury, because we lived up at 689 Shawmut Avenue at that time, one of the few times I lived in the Roxbury area. We went to the Lafayette School. I was a rather taciturn individual, so the teacher there thought I was slightly retarded. She wanted to put me in a speech class, so she had me in there -- in the kind of class that today we call for "special children," I guess. [Laughs] My mother wasn't too happy with that but there wasn't too much she could do about that because we lived in that district, and you had to go to school in your district. Then we moved down to 401 Shawmut Avenue and I went to the George Bancroft and Rice Schools. The teacher there, Miss Brady, said "This boy knows how to draw" and she called my mother and suggested I go to the children's Art Center. So there are two instances -- if I'd stayed at the Lafayette School, I probably never would have known anything about drawing and I probably would have had some problems, as being in that teacher's eyes sort of mentally retarded -- not hopelessly so, but . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Inside, were you not very interested in most subjects in school? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I had, I guess, normal interest. But anyhow, what impressed this particular teacher was my lack of talking . I guess I've sort of remedied that particular deficiency, since then. ROBERT BROWN: Maybe you were just shy. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't know what it was. Even at home during those early years some of the other people - - not my parents -- would get after me and say, "Boy, why don't you talk?" And I'd say, "I don't want to." [Both laugh} Of course I can't remember that, but that's what they've told me. ROBERT BROWN: You spent a lot of time to yourself in those years . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I guess so, because you see I was the only child that lived. If all of us had been alive, there would have been four of us. But I was an only child and I presume that would have some effect. ROBERT BROWN: Was your mother around, though, quite a lot? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I was very close to her, I suppose. I was born on March 20, 1910, and I was a premature baby. As a matter of fact, all of us were premature. With today's science, probably my sister would be alive today. I think she struggled along for a few months before she succumbed. According to "rules and regulations," I shouldn't be alive either but nobody told me that and I didn't know that at the time. [Both laugh heartily] I weighed less than three pounds when I was born. I was about a month early. Then for a long while it was touch and go as to whether I'd make it or not. My mother tells me that what she had to do each night was fasten me onto a kind of ironing board thing, fasten my legs down on this particular board, to keep my bones straight. If she hadn't done that, I probably would have been a cripple. It wasn't until I was around five that they were sure I was going to make it. ROBERT BROWN: Even a little later than these times you're talking about, were you a little frailer than your contemporaries? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I guess so (hesitatingly). I suppose. But in a picture of me when I was six, I look healthy enough there. (RB agrees) But that doesn't give any idea of the struggle I had to bring me up to that particular stage. And I've enjoyed reasonably good health up to now. ROBERT BROWN: We're looking, here, at something that's delightful -- it's the struggle of two dinosaurs, much bigger than little tiny humans down on the ground who are shooting at them. [He laughs] This is no doubt from imagination. What source is there for this? Could you go into this a bit? You've done a number of things like this. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, there was a movie that came out called "The Lost World" and I think one of the chief characters in it was a chap called Wallace Beery, of the famous Beery brothers -- there was Noah, and Wallace. It was a sort of science-fiction thing. The story was about this plateau in Patagonia, down in South America, upon which the dinosaurs still exist. A group of England went down to visit and had all kinds of adventures on this plateau dodging pterodactyls, brontosauri and tyrannosauri and all the other various denizens of what you might call the Jurassic Period. There was a caveman mixed in there, too -- how he got mixed into this particular deal I don't know, but he was there, too. [Both laugh] So that made quite an impression and I made a few drawings of these creatures. This particular sketch of these oversized pterodactyls, a pen drawing . . . . ROBERT BROWN: An example of that. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Were you frightened by it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Did you wish you lived in a place like that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, I found it fascinating, an adventure -- sort of like this space stuff we have today. ROBERT BROWN: How old were you, when you did this? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, say around 12, 13 or 14. ROBERT BROWN: The line seems much surer than in the earlier drawings. There's a feeling of one animal biting another, and the little human figures moving around in different postures. You seem much more sure of your composition and drawing. This is after you'd had a couple of years at the Children's Art Center? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, yes. ROBERT BROWN: Here's another streetscape. South End, no doubt. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: But it's in perspective. And again I'd say the drawing . . . what was it? Charcoal? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, it's pencil, rather soft pencil. ROBERT BROWN: The drawing seems a little surer. It's more of an impressionistic effect, as compared with those very early ones we looked at. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, the period is almost the same. I'd say I was around 12 or 13. And this is a view of Warren Avenue. It shows the Old English High School. It's a drawing that I could probably use as a basis for a reconstruction. It shows how they tore down trees in those days. The tree was sawed through, then a chain was attached to it, and then a team of horses would apply pressure to bring down the tree. That's what this shows, here. ROBERT BROWN: This was something you saw? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: You sketched while they were doing it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I probably did. I may have drawn it right on the spot. If not, then shortly thereafter, while the memory was still fresh. I sort of search for these drawings, now, because they do show bits and pieces of the life of that particular period. I'm sufficiently removed from it now so that it is a sort of historic moment. There's a car that looks like a model T Ford in the background. ROBERT BROWN: This next one coming up is a pen-and-watercolor drawing of a circus -- the elephants, one wagon and the tents. This, no doubt, as for many children, was a very vivid thing. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. In those days they used to have real circus parades. Then, the tents and things were thrown off at a place where Northeastern University is today. Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey, and also Sells-Floto would come. That's one of the few times when Dad and I would go around together. I remember he and I used to go to the lot there and watch them put up the tents and all that sort of activity. It was interesting to see the animals and get the smell of sawdust and the whole bit. ROBERT BROWN: Did you do quite a few sketches of the circus? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Apparently I did. I only have one or two here. ROBERT BROWN: You say this was one of the few times when you went around with your father. In general . . . well, he was busy working, for one thing. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I didn't have too much association with him, in one sense. Of course he was home every day, naturally. But, as a companion, like man-to-man kind of business, he was somewhat distant. He was considerably older than my mother. Age-wise, there were almost three generations. Dad was 35 when he married my mother, and she was 18. ROBERT BROWN: So by this time, what is he? About 50 or so? Or approaching that age? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Somewhat dubiously] Yes. ROBERT BROWN: In contrast, to your mother you were quite close, you said. Maybe one last thing we could look at here, you've got here a watercolor by your mother herself. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Did she paint and draw quite a lot, as well, during your childhood? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE She did a little drawing. As I look at her work today, she did have the ability on her own to be an artist in her own right. Of course, she was never trained. She used to write poetry. Nothing that was published -- maybe one or two things that would get into a newspaper, something like that. She could write. And she had the basic ability to draw. ROBERT BROWN: I think her color here is quite fine, too. A ship at sea, with an Indian on the beach. The waves, and the cloud effects in the sky are . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE It's called "Lonesome Pine." There's a lone pine tree up there, growing in the rocks. ROBERT BROWN: Did this have an effect on you? Your seeing her write poems? You liked to write, a lot. And your seeing her do some painting once in a while? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE As a matter of fact, her writing was probably the beginning of my drawing. When she started to write, I'd see her pick up a pen, and of course I'd want to write, too. So she started me off on drawing just to keep me quiet, I guess. That's how it came about. ROBERT BROWN: Really? [Laughing] At least, you could, even as a small child, do that with your pen, couldn't you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. [RB laughs heartily] [END OF THIS INTERVIEW] TAPE-RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH A. R. CRITE JUNE 29, 1979 INTERVIEWER: ROBERT BROWN ROBERT BROWN: Today we're going to begin inching our way through your work, discussing what phases of your career it represents. I thought we'd begin in the very beginning. After your youthful work, you were at the Massachusetts College of Art for at least a brief time, in 1930. Could you discuss that a bit? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was at the Mass. College of Art, I think, for one semester, and I think I went at night. If I remember correctly (that was a long time ago), I took a course in -- maybe it was sculpture. I vaguely remember an instructor by the name of Mr. Potter, I think his name was. I don't remember much else of that particular period. I think I also went to Boston University business school and took one or two courses there. It's something like the extension courses that they had. That was about practically all, as far as Mass. College of Art is concerned. That was about it. ROBERT BROWN: You have no vivid memory of that. Apparently -- you'd had courses earlier, and there you had a few more. Probably in night school. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Assents] ROBERT BROWN: But this prepared you then, or at least after that you immediately went to the school of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Is that correct? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was there at the same time. ROBERT BROWN: At the same time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, you see I went to the Museum School from 1929 through '36. During that period of time, I went to the Mass. College of Art at night for just about one semester. In other words, I was going to two schools in time. ROBERT BROWN: How did you come to enter the Museum School, in 1929? How did that come about? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I studied at the Museum of Fine Arts in the vocational art classes, a program which they had in connection with the Boston school system. ROBERT BROWN: This was Saturday classes? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, this was all during the week. So, as soon as I got through high school, I went up to the Museum and took courses in charcoal drawing, design, textile design, composition, and so forth. In my senior year -- the Museum school issued one or two scholarships to the students of that particular program -- I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to the Museum School. ROBERT BROWN: This was called a vocational program? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE In those days, they called it High School Vocational Art Classes. ROBERT BROWN: Were many of the children in those classes then going into industry or work for retailers or something, as illustrators, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't know. It was just a series of classes offered by the Museum of fine Arts. So I suspect that some of the students may have gone into professional schools from there. ROBERT BROWN: And others might have gone directly to work, I guess. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's a possibility. ROBERT BROWN: Did you develop some chums or friends while you were at these art classes? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Not really. I'd probably only see them once a day. I didn't develop any more friends there than I did in other high school classes. ROBERT BROWN: With a scholarship, then, you entered the Museum School in the fall of 1929? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. And it was rather fortunate that I got the scholarship, because you see at the time I'd made application to the Yale University art school. And though my grades weren't the best in the world, for some reason or other they decided to accept me. So I had a letter of acceptance from Yale. Then the Museum School scholarship came through, so I decided to stay here in Boston. Some people were rather unhappy about that. They thought I should have the experience of going away to school. But, as it turned out, it was a rather fortunate thing that I did stay because my father was seriously injured in October. He was a very powerful man. He was an engineer and, of course, he had an engineer's license. Apparently he was working with some kind of electrical drill and the thing short-circuited. Anyhow, it caused him a massive cerebral hemorrhage. It should have killed him immediately but it didn't. So that meant that Mother and I had about 200 pounds of man to deal with for the next seven years. Also, in 1929 was "the great Crash." That meant that a lot of people were out of work. ROBERT BROWN: Did you have to exist on your father's pension? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE In those days they didn't have pensions. The company paid some monies to us for a while. But not much. He didn't have such a thing as workmen's compensation. That didn't come until later on; I guess with FDR. ROBERT BROWN: You were living here in the South End of Boston? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, we were living at No. 2 Dillwood [?] Street. That's right on the edge of the South End. ROBERT BROWN: So you were within easy walking distance of the Museum School, then. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, that was no problem. My mother was able to secure work, I guess you'd call it, as a domestic -- cleaning up apartments, things like that, for well-to-do people in the downtown area. I might say, just as a matter of tribute, in a way, that she worked for quite a few young men. My mother was a very good looking woman -- I'm not saying that because she was my mother, that's a matter of fact. And these young men appreciated her, and they appreciated what she was trying to do -- help me go through school, and so forth. They also appreciated her character. So they made sure she was never molested. And they would recommend other people, when she got through working for one person or another. And they would be scrupulous about that. Because it would have been very easy for a person like my mother to have all kinds of unexpected difficulties. I must say that, as a tribute to these young men, that they were so careful of her and practically acted as guardians for her, you might say. ROBERT BROWN: Here at the very time you're going to art school, there are lots of concerns and worries. Is that the way you felt at that time, as a young student? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, I didn't. Because I wasn't conscious of that sort of thing. ROBERT BROWN: At that time you were mainly intent on going to the school? Were you very excited about doing so? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [With some hesitation] Yes, but it was tempered by the domestic situation. Having a father who was practically helpless, that had a very sobering effect. ROBERT BROWN: What did you do at the beginning when you went to art school? Could you describe to us what was the curriculum? Who were some of the teachers? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Philip Hale was head of the painting department. When I first went to the school, we did cast drawings, then we went into life drawing. ROBERT BROWN: Did you work with him? Did he teach you directly? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Again hesitatingly] Yes, I just remember that vaguely. I went in for design. There was a Mr. Clark who was head of the design department, so I took courses with him. Then there was a Miss Alice Brooks, she was also a high school vocational art class but she also taught design. There were two or three other teachers; I can't remember their names. ROBERT BROWN: Did they work closely with you? Or were they dignified remote figures? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, they worked very closely with me. They were very much interested in my work. ROBERT BROWN: Why do you suppose they were? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't know. I suppose I could be egotistical and say that they saw a spark of genius in me. [Both laugh heartily] ROBERT BROWN: But they probably did think you were rather precocious? At least very able? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They probably did. But, as far as talent is concerned, I was just among a group of very talented people. Because almost everybody in the Art school was of a high caliber. In the school, we went through an extraordinary experience, as far as that school is concerned, which was extremely unusual. It has to be people in that particular time frame who have experienced it. That is this: during my tour of duty there, I went to practically three different schools during that time. By that I mean this: When Philip Hale had joined his ancestors, then the whole painting system was changed, you might say -- revised and so forth. We received a couple of teachers from England, from the Slade School in London -- a Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Burns. So the painting department was under their tutelage or headship for a period. That meant the whole philosophy and everything else went through almost a revolution. ROBERT BROWN: What was it? What did it consist of, this change? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, you see, Philip Hale was of the old school, academic school. And of course they had Mr. Tarboom [phon. sp.], Mr. Vincent [?], and Patrick Gavin [?]. The name Patrick Gavin is of particular interest. I don't remember any contacts with Patrick Gavin but he was there for a short while, apparently. Then he became an instructor at the Mass. College of Art. But the reason I bring up his name is because he's the father of The Reverend Kearney [?] Gavin, who happens to be the curator of the Semitic Museum at Harvard, with whom I'm working today. ROBERT BROWN: So it's a real connection. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it is. ROBERT BROWN: Philip Hale's program, then, was traditional academic, drawing from a cast, and the like. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE And the life paintings. ROBERT BROWN: But the two Englishmen, Burns and Guthrie -- what program did they follow? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They had rather precise drawings. There was a great deal of stress on draftsmanship. I guess the best way I could describe them is that their approach was a little bit like the Flemish masters -- like the van Eyck brothers, for example, or Rogier van der Weyden, or people like that. A great deal of stress on detail. The color work was rather sober, rather subdued in a sense. ROBERT BROWN: What medium did you work in? Several? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I did work in oils and watercolor and drawings and so forth. They stayed on for I guess about four years. ROBERT BROWN: By the way, your seven years there, was that typical? It was a long curriculum? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, I took two complete courses. I took a complete course in design, and also a complete course in drawing and painting. ROBERT BROWN: Could you explain the design? What did that mean? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, textiles, and interiors . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Whom did you work with? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I worked with [tries to recall names] -- Alice Brooks - - ROBERT BROWN: She was the general design instructor? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE She was one of the instructors. And the man whose name I'm trying to remember . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What sort of work did he have you do? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Designing textiles, and interiors -- for example, design a room, what the furnishings would be. Then go to the Museum and study the period rooms they had over there. They had just opened up some brand-new rooms there, like the Tudor Room, and 18th Century, and so on -- a brand-new wing opened up back there. ROBERT BROWN: Were you asked to do variations on period rooms, in your interior design? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, that was one thing. Then I was asked to make up a design for a four-room or a 12- room home, for example. And that a person would like to have this or that or the other, so I'd design something like that. ROBERT BROWN: Based on what, historical furniture? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: It wasn't contemporary design in this course? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, yes, we had that, too. ROBERT BROWN: What sort of things did they stress there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, it was "contemporary" for back in the 1930's. Whatever was the popular mode then would reflect itself so far as the school was concerned. I'd have to refer back to Saturday Evening Posts and Cosmopolitan and McCall's magazines for the kinds of things back in that particular period of the 30's. I don't think I did any fashion designs; I don't recall any. Then, of course, there was the idea of composition. There was some blockprinting . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Was composition taught in a theoretical, general way? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. You'd study the Old Masters like Veronese, the Venetian man of the Renaissance, and the theories of that kind of design -- pyramids, diagonals, and the controposto, I guess, of people like Rubens. You'd take off on Titian, go back to Raphael . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Did you enjoy these studies of art of the past? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. We had some art history too, so at least I know the difference between Doric and Corinthian, and also something about Gothic and Baroque, that sort of business. ROBERT BROWN: You said earlier there was a third change while you were still in school. Burns and Guthrie were there, then they left. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Then we had a teacher named Alexander Yakovlev [phon. sp.] and I would practically call him an artist-anthropologist. He was Russian. The best way to describe his work would be -- he had a precise drawing, something like Botticelli. So, if you could translate that into 1930 terms, it might give an idea. He made a tremendous impact on all of his students. ROBERT BROWN: Why do you suppose he did? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He was a vibrant personality, for one thing. He had what you'd call charisma, I guess. Being an artist-anthropologist, of course he was quite adventurous, a venturesome person. He was the Citroen Motorcade -- the auto company had a motorcade across the Sahara, so he'd bring back all these drawings of North Africans. Like the Tuaregs, for example, and other peoples in North Africa. Then he'd go on another expedition out into the Gobi Desert and come back with pictures of the Mongols and the Yoruks. And he went to Japan. He had huge portfolios of these drawings, sort of conte crayon drawings, red heightened with black for accents. So he invited us over to his studio, some of his students. You'd see a great display of these various things. I kind of wished he'd gone down into the Andes Mountains and got pictures of the Peruvians and all that kind of business down there. ROBERT BROWN: You feel that he left out one continent! [Both laugh] What was your attitude? Were you just sort of in awe of how facile he was? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, all of us were. He made a tremendous impact on all of us. A lot of his students became almost, you might say, little Yakovlevs in a sense. I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that a great deal of his influence came through on me too. Yes, he was a great virtuoso in a sense; that is, he could make a life-sized life drawing almost within an hour in demonstrating to us what he wanted us to look for and so forth. He had these huge sheets of paper and the model would stand over on one side and he'd go ahead and make up this drawing showing us what he wanted. Of course, we all stood around almost open-mouthed at this miracle of work. ROBERT BROWN: He'd lecture while he worked? He'd be talking to you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. He had an accent that was a sort of combined Russian and French. ROBERT BROWN: What was he trying to emphasize, do you remember, when he was drawing and talking? What was he trying to get across to you students? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He emphasized the accuracy of drawing and understanding emotion -- making your things vital and living. Hard to describe . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Would you say that in your own case this was a new ingredient -- that you weren't able to be so accurate or get this vibrancy into your drawing until he came along? ROBERT BROWN: Well, I had it already, I guess. He just more or less accentuated it, in a way. I would say that the most important thing to look back at now is probably the sense of inspiration he gave to all of us. ROBERT BROWN: What did he inspire you about? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, you felt alive when you were working on your drawings. Just a sense of vitality that you'd have. ROBERT BROWN: All of this work you were doing, on the other hand there was a counter-force to that, and that was the situation at home, right? Your father's invalidism Did you often get depressed at that time or was work at school so intense that it carried you through this very bad period? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes [With hesitation]. I don't know. You see, after the first shock of my father's illness -- it was really quite a shock because we saw this great big healthy man going to work in the morning, and then we got a call from the hospital and seeing him laying up in bed, with distraught face and practically helpless -- the initial shock was quite something. Then there was a period of readjustment. After that, that became the normal way of life, so we more or less adapted to it. ROBERT BROWN: Maybe we could look at two or three of these drawings from your time at the Museum school. The top two are figure studies from 1934. Who would have been your teacher at that point? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Alexander Yakovlev. ROBERT BROWN: Here you are working in conte crayon -- it looks like a sepia crayon? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: In the male and female study. As we look at these, could you explain what you were trying to get across in this -- what lesson you were trying to satisfy? [ARC laughs] I assume as a student you were. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, one thing I wanted to get was solidity, to get the impression that I was working with a solid mass there. Then, of course, there's the bone structure, then the muscles on top of that, then the skin on top of that. In other words, you were working with a solid human being, so I tried to get that. There was great stress on the structure of it. ROBERT BROWN: On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be too much stress here on the feel of the surface, the texture. Is that accurate? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I guess so. I hadn't thought of it, as a matter of fact. ROBERT BROWN: The appearance of the skin. It does seem that the concentration is on volume. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Were there other teachers? You mentioned Guthrie and Burns -- would they have been more interested in appearance and, say, the very texture of various materials, flesh and the like? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Reflecting] Well . . . . . ROBERT BROWN: You said they were something like the Flemish painters. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. The thing was, in a sense, preciseness. That is, for example, if I made a drawing of a brick building, then they'd say put in all the bricks; that type of thing. In drawing they were very precise; they had that thing. One thing I must say about the school as a whole: All during these three different periods there was a great deal of stress on drawing. That was considered of prime importance. I don't know what they do in school today but back in those days, they stressed you must learn how to draw. ROBERT BROWN: You feel that's been a good thing. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, I'm a firm believer in that. I'm a firm believer today that a person should be able to draw in the classical fashion and know how to do it. I feel that's important as a form of discipline. But I don't believe you should make exact drawing an end in itself, but rather it should be a means toward an end. Because, if the person masters the art of drawing, then of course that individual has the skill at his fingertips. Then he's perfectly free to do whatever he wants -- to make an abstract, or wants to do this, that or other, he'll be able to do so with a great deal of facility. If he has an inability to draw to begin with, then of course he'll always be faced with this particular problem -- that he wants to do something, he can't do it, because he doesn't have the ability to do it or the skills to do it. So I believe that learning how to draw is just the same as learning how to handle tools -- like a carpenter or any of the other disciplines. ROBERT BROWN: Expression can come later, is that right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I mean, it's like rules of grammar. It just makes it a little easier for you to make whatever statement you wish to make. But if you don't understand the rules of grammar to begin with, then of course you'll always have trouble. ROBERT BROWN: You've mentioned already that you had painting in color. Was color not as stressed in painting, wasn't as stressed as drawing? Is that your recollection as you look back? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. All was stressed. When you went into painting class -- of course we did oil painting -- the color was stressed. ROBERT BROWN: Did you have to study color? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, they had color charts, all that. I got that in the design department. ROBERT BROWN: This drawing here, a charcoal of about the same time, at least the time when you were in school, you said to me earlier is directly drawn; or at least it's drawn from memory of an incident. Could you describe this a bit for us? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, you see, while I was in the art school, that was you might say only one portion of my whole drawing experience. During the period of art school I was making these neighborhood paintings, I was also making these illustrations for spirituals, and I was doing these pencil drawings which apparently became well known. At least, I find right now that that seems to be one of the favorite aspects of my work which is being purchased. But anyhow I used to go down to the wharf, because the waterfront was quite a fascinating place. So I was very much interested in ships. This particular charcoal drawing I have here shows one of the Eastern Steamship Line -- it may have been either the Yarmouth or the St. Johns. Back in those days, in the 20's, there was this teamship company of coastal steamers which served New York, on one hand, and went up to Portland and Portsmouth and Yarmouth on the other. This particular steamship line was the one that had that famous ship that went out one night to Portland, was lost, and never was found. I think that particular ship was a side- wheeler. But at any rate . . . . ROBERT BROWN: There's no details to speak of, in this drawing. You weren't drawn to the details of these ships, you're hardly a ship's portraitist. You were more interested, it looks like, in large volumes and very simplified -- what was your intention, would you say, here? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's just more or less a study in composition. Showing loading one of these ships. I was just trying a pattern of light and shade. [END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2] [BEGINNING OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1] [TAPE PICKS UP IN MID-SENTENCE] ROBERT BROWN: . . . painting. Perhaps you did. If you had, what would you have stressed then? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I would be stressing an incident. Showing the movements of people going on board ship, loading it and so on, the kind of activity you get on a waterfront scene like that. ROBERT BROWN: It's not unlike, then, what you've called your neighborhood paintings . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: . . . or you once called your genre paintings of this time. TAPE-RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH A. R. CRITE JUNE 29, 1979 INTERVIEWER: ROBERT BROWN ROBERT BROWN: This is an interview with Alan Crite on June 29, 1979. ROBERT BROWN: We're looking now at a pencil drawing of a woman flanked by two small children. They're all very nicely dressed, walking down the street. You call it "Sunday Afternoon." It has the subtitle, "Sunday Swank" and dated August 1934. So you're in the Museum school at this time, but presumably this was more or less done on your own. Could you tell me why you did this? What did you have in mind when you did this? Is this sheer observation, one of the neighborhood paintings or drawings? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, you see, during the particular period I did a lot of pencil drawings, made a lot of studies of the neighborhood and the people in the neighborhood. I had several reasons for doing it during this particular period. I was making studies of black people just as ordinary human beings, because the usual picture that one had -- at least that's my impression -- was that the artist was strongly influenced by, you might say, the jazz person up in Harlem, or of the sharecropper in the deep South. There was nothing in between -- of just the ordinary middle-class person who goes to church, does the work, etc. What I decided to do back in those days -- and as a matter of fact I'm still doing it -- was just simply to record the life of black people as I saw them in the city where I lived, which happened to be Boston. That's what this drawing is an expression of. This would probably be a Sunday morning, and of course back in those days the life of the church was extremely important in the lives of the people because the church served as a place of worship, also as a community center, and quite a few other functions. It was more or less the heart of the life of the great majority of black people in those days. So, you'd come out in your Sunday best, and that's what I was trying to show here. This young woman, who is obviously attractive, or at least I thought so, flanked by a couple of children. And in the background a couple of well-dressed young men giving this gal the once-over and approval. It's a typical kind of Sunday scene that one would see on Columbus Avenue, on Tremont Street or any other street here in Boston. ROBERT BROWN: You mentioned one time that you felt you were more of an observer than a participant in much of this. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I sort of regarded myself as a recorder, or you might say a storyteller. As a matter of fact, I suppose that would be one main characteristic of my work -- that I am a storyteller. Something like what they call the zheero [pure phon. sp.], so far as the African tradition is concerned. And I didn't realize how much of a storyteller I really was, because I made recordings of the life of the 1930's, and also showing the background of the various streets of the city. Today, of course, a lot of these streets have vanished, the people have disappeared, and the only record of them in many instances are the drawings which I made. So, the simple idea that I had in the back of my head as I made these drawings is just simply to show black people as ordinary people, human beings that had their loves and their distresses, their joys and happiness and sorrows -- just plain, ordinary people. So I made all these different street scenes with the horse carts, the vegetable man, the fish man; or people gossiping, children playing in the streets or the playground -- all of these short of homely things. ROBERT BROWN: Was there quite a distinct and stable black community where you lived? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, there was. Relatively stable. As a matter of fact, the neighborhoods in general, whether they were black or otherwise, were relatively stable back there in the 30's. In the South End there was a kind of transient population, where you'd get population changes. But they were more or less gradual. The massive disruption didn't come until later when there was this great urban renewal project which, in my opinion, was a disaster, when neighborhood after neighborhood was wiped out. One classic example is what took place in the West End. Unfortunately, West End isn't an isolated phenomenon, but rather more or less the usual method of procedures. The bulldozers would come in and knock down and destroy houses, knock down and destroy neighborhoods, and people would become you might say "development refugees." So we've had a tremendous refugee problem in this country. The life that existed just simply vanished. That's one of the things which has happened. ROBERT BROWN: These neighborhood recordings, as you call them, of the 30's were shown and displayed occasionally, weren't they? Some of the paintings you made were collected by museums and the like, weren't they, at that time? Or fairly shortly thereafter?? I'm thinking of -- there's at least one in the Phillips Collection in Washington, and I think -- well, there are now several of the Boston Athenaeum, but certain museums and people were collecting them, weren't they? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. People were. Of course, at the time when I made the paintings, very few of them were sold, as far as the oil paintings are concerned. ROBERT BROWN: Did you have a dealer? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. The Grace Horne Galleries, on Newbury Street, took an interest. And as I look back on it now, it was an act of courage on their part. They had a great deal of faith in me, in a way. And I'm relatively sure that I probably may have been the only black artist who was consistently shown on Newbury Street back in the 30's. So they were very much interested in the work, obviously, and they did display it. A few of my things were sold. Of course, we have to remember that this is during the Depression, so that unless you were very well off, you simply did not buy works of art. But I had a formal introduction into the art world. I belonged to a society called the Boston Society of Independent Artists. And in one of the exhibitions I had an oil painting called "Settling the World's Problems" -- I wish I had that painting today -- and that represented my more or less formal introduction into the art world. I was introduced, you might say, into the art world by the dean of art critics of that time. Mr. William Cochran/Cochrane of the Boston Evening Transcript. There was a great reproduction of my painting in the paper, and so forth. ROBERT BROWN: Was this practically the first time you got acquainted with some of the older artists of the area? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [With hesitancy] Yes-s-s, and no. In the Society of Independent Artists I did have a chance to meet a few of the artists. In that society you had well-known professionals as well as sub-professionals, because the exhibition was a non-juried show. And the idea was to give younger people like myself, unknown, a chance to be introduced into the art world and receive recognition. ROBERT BROWN: Mr. Cochran/Cochrane was important in this, but who were some of the other people you got to know? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE As far as the critics were concerned, there was a Mr. Philpott [sp?] of the Boston Globe . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What about artists? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE People like Harvey Pepper, and Charles Hopkins, and William B. Hazleton. ROBERT BROWN: These were people you got to know to some extent? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: By the way -- I haven't asked you -- did you, with either of these artists or with your fellow students, did you discuss art very much? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. These artists that I mentioned -- Pepper and Hopkins and Hazleton -- were much older than I. ROBERT BROWN: But still, would they . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, they would discuss my work. Sometimes they'd buy it. Hazleton did give me some instruction. I went up to, I think it was Rockport, and he had me doing some watercolors up there; watercolor studies. I ran across somebody, I can't remember his name, he recalled that particular period to mind. ROBERT BROWN: In what way? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He reminded me of the time I did work with Mr. Hazleton. I was introduced into the Independent Artists society by Mr. Walter Killum [?]. He was of the Killum, & Creedy [?], architects, in Boston. It was rather an extraordinary period, because I was introduced to some other architects. I became acquainted with Ralph Adams Cram -- not to know him very well, but I did become acquainted with a Mr. Charles McGinnis, who did some work at Trinity Church. He was more or less responsible for a later development -- introducing me to Harold Rambush [phon. sp.] of the Rambush Decorating company . . . . ROBERT BROWN: . . . of the 1940's when you worked for them. What was McGinnis like? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He looked like a patriarch. He was a great big towering man with white hair and a huge mustache, as I recall. His voice boomed like an organ [Laughing]. I probably didn't see or hear him, it was just that image that I had of him. A very, very dynamic person. ROBERT BROWN: But you were fairly regularly illustrated and written up in the Boston press, at least, as we can see. And you've described it. About that time, 1934 or '36 -- we've just been talking about the genre and neighborhood paintings -- came the Works Progress Administration, the WPA. And you were on the Project for a bit. How long? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was in two projects, you might say. There was one that came, I think, about 1934. ROBERT BROWN: Is that the Public Works of Art Project? The Treasury Department, right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. The office for that was at the Isabella Stewart/Jack Gardner palace. I was on that for a few months. ROBERT BROWN: This helped to subsidize your going to school? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. And then I was on the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, for about a year or so. They had two categories -- non-relief artists, and relief artists. I was on as a non-relief artist. Then, when the money ran out on that particular section, they wanted me to continue, but I'd have to continue as a relief artist. ROBERT BROWN: What was the difference? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That meant that you were on relief. My mother and I, we didn't quite like that connotation. So we took the painful decision to not continue in the program. ROBERT BROWN: You would have been on what we call "welfare," today. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. We had a kind of less-than-enthusiastic view of that. But the genre paintings I did for the WPA were just an extension of the work I was already doing ROBERT BROWN: That's why I ask about it, right now. There are a number of street scenes. Here's one of horses . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's the Shawmut Avenue Stables. One of the things that surprised me about all of these paintings which I did back in that particular period is the prevalence of horses and wagons. I hadn't thought of that, but of course you very seldom see that nowadays. ROBERT BROWN: They were very common still, then, even in urban life. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: I notice, as I look at it, this particular scene, it's quite simplified. You're not exactly under the spell of Guthrie an Burns at this time. This is 1936. There's a great deal of spirited action -- sort of frozen action tough, but spirited postures on the people's part. The man pushing the handcart, the man leading the horse into the stables. Were these, then, acquired by the government? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, they were. The paintings I did on WPA were government property. I lost track of practically all of the paintings except for one painting which is now in the national collection of the Smithsonian - - that's called "School's Out." That made quite an impression. As a matter of fact, that was in an exhibition in the Museum of Modern At in New York of WPA paintings, and this one was featured in reviews when they came out. I think it was in the New York Times, something like that. I had the pleasure of seeing that painting recently at an exhibition of Decorova [phon. sp.] Museum, so I had a chance to reacquaint myself with it. It was a rather strange experience to see this painting . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Because you hadn't seen it for so long? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. And then of course it recalled so many [Loud crash in room, obscures a few words.] Because the whole scene has vanished today -- the school and everything have just disappeared. There's a housing project now on the location where the school was, as shown in the painting. ROBERT BROWN: Who was the supervisor? And what relation would you have had with him or her on the WPA Project? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The only supervisor I remember offhand -- I think his name was Frank Sterner -- I think that's what it was. He knew me from an earlier period which I can't remember offhand. But he was instrumental later on in establishing a painters' workshop which had some relationship to the Fogg Art Museum. We studied techniques of painting, mixed media, and so on. And we were just going into mosaics, but by that time World War II had made things rather difficult. So that particular project died. We had classes over at the Kensington Building that used to be on the corner of Exeter and Boylson Streets. That building was identified by a couple of stone lions that stood up there in solemn dignity. These lions had been removed to the Copley Plaza and unfortunately some of this dignity had been covered with gold paint! I can't imagine anything more [Words seem to fail him here.] [Both laugh] ROBERT BROWN: Was that a useful thing -- the painters' workshop, for you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I had a chance to do frescoes -- the only frescoes I'd ever done in my life. Both of them are in this house right at the moment. And I learned something about wax painting and a few other things like that. ROBERT BROWN: But at the time you were on the WPA, you didn't have that much contact with a supervisor, and you were in fact allowed to paint pretty much what you wanted to paint. Is that right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. my commission was just to do easel paintings. ROBERT BROWN: And no questions about subjects or anything. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no. They just about left that completely up to me. My feeling is that, as far as the WPA is concerned, it left the artist with a great deal of freedom. The program was quite successful. The present NEH program which we have today is of an entirely different character, and to some extent rather less supportive of the artist when you compare it with the Works Progress Administration. I think the WPA probably followed a little more the European model as a supporter of the arts, shall I say. It covered a great deal more than just painting - - the visual arts were also covered. The , and the theater arts, and so forth. So it's probably responsible at least in part for what you might call the Harlem Renaissance -- people like Countee Cullen and Baldwin. ROBERT BROWN: Were you aware of that Harlem Renaissance in the 30's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Vaguely. We heard a whole lot about Harlem, but of course the picture I got of Harlem -- I have some relatives down there so I used to visit there now and then. But of course I would see it from the point of view of visiting a place where my relatives lived. I had an uncle who was a policeman. In the art field, I wasn't that conscious of I was conscious of Harlem more as being a jazz center, and conscious of what you might call the jazz Negro. That would be the time of Duke Ellington and I guess Gillespie and all the other jazz greats. ROBERT BROWN: Were you interested in jazz yourself? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, not really. My mother had a very dim view of jazz. ROBERT BROWN: Why, do you suppose? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, there are two approaches you might say, as far as Black people are concerned, I guess. Some people regarded jazz -- some of the good church people, regarded jazz as almost a drumbeat to the Devil. My mother's father was a Baptist. Some of the churches looked with less than favor upon such things as dancing, and jazz, and that sort of business. So I must say that my grandfather didn't object to my mother doing dancing or anything like that, but he seemed to have, or at least my mother had, rather a prejudice against jazz. As a result, my enthusiasm has been extremely tempered. A little bit of it goes a long way with me. I've probably been rather preconditioned in that sense. ROBERT BROWN: Well, to get to another expression of yours in the 30's namely, portraits, I get the feeling as I look at your portraits that there is a severity, almost a quiet dignity, about the people you portray. Perhaps we could talk a bit about the portraits. What we're looking at here are oil paintings. Again, something you're doing while you're at art school but, I gather, like the neighborhood paintings, done on your own. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Do we want to start by looking at what you've told me is the earliest? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I did quite a few portrait studies. I did some of my mother. They're mostly of my friends. ROBERT BROWN: What about the one over there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's a portrait of Lois. ROBERT BROWN: Lois. That's what -- the early 30's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Could you comment on that? What were you attempting to do? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Lois was a friend of mine. If I'd followed through with my instincts, she would have been my wife. She was the child of a friend of mine. When I say childhood background -- she was about six, I was probably about eight or nine. We sort of grew up together. She went to Simmons College. She used to come to the house quite a lot, so I used to make drawings of her. I decided to make this portrait study of her. At that time, I was thinking of James Abbott McNeill Whistler -- that more or less governed control of my coloring and composition. The painting has been on exhibition at the Museum for the Jubilee show of Black Art that's been there, and it's been shown, I think, at the National Center for Afro-American Artists. ROBERT BROWN: to what extent is this indebted to what you were learning at art school? It's a rather limited palette. You said it's been influenced somewhat by Whistler, and certainly the composition is more like that of Whistler's "Mother," vaguely speaking. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Do you think in this you see any other intention besides . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, well maybe something of Guthrie and Burns -- the sort of sober coloring might have had some influence. In all of the portraits, the parties are very still -- that is, none of them are animated to any extent. That probably may be characteristic of my portrait studies, at least of that particular period. I haven't done any oils since. ROBERT BROWN: Are there any others you'd like me to bring up for . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Turning aside off-mike] Yes, well, there's this man with a mustache. His name was Jack Bates. He was a playwright, so I have in the background a scene from one of his plays. He used to write these dramas of rural life in the South. Some of these were broadcast over the radio. I sang in a group called the Clef [?] Choir -- we sang spirituals. And he used this as musical background for these particular plays which were broadcast over Station WNAC, here in Boston. Jack Bates died about two or three years ago. I think he was a little bit older than I. He was in World War I; he had been gassed in that War. But he was on the border of genius, you might say, as far as his plays are concerned. Some of them were produced in some of the little theater groups that existed back in those days in the 30's -- the Peabody Playhouse, the Fine Arts Theater which used to be on Norway Street. Today, of course, they've got that concrete pile called Church Park. ROBERT BROWN: This portrait shows a very intense, youngish man. He seems to be sort of gazing off into space. Were you close to him, or was he a fairly reserved person? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, he was quite lively as a matter of fact. I have to say that in my portraits I wasn't able to get much animation. That isn't because the people weren't animated, because [He laughs] they sure were. But it's just my interpretation of them. ROBERT BROWN: It could be, perhaps, again, you were a student at this time. And you're getting, as we saw in the life drawings, a great deal of attention is given to volume relationships and giving a feeling of structure, and not a great deal to expression and vivacity. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I'm not a portraitist by nature. It takes quite a bit of discipline to be a portrait painter -- a certain kind of discipline which I didn't have. This thing here, of these two young women -- the darker woman on the left and the lighter one on the right -- of the lighter woman I wanted to make a drawing. But she was a cousin of the darker woman, so in order for me to do it I had to do the cousin. [Laughing] But the cousin took part in some of Jack Bates' plays. She's still around -- in fact both of those girls are still around. One is in her 60's, the other one in her 50's. They came to the house a few weeks ago and were rather fascinated to see this painting of themselves done over 40 years ago. I promised to send them a slide, at least, of this. ROBERT BROWN: What did they have to say about it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Well, they were a little bit surprised, a little amazed, in trying to recognize themselves as they appeared back then. ROBERT BROWN: Were they flattered by the way they looked then? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't know. [Laughing] Because both of them are not slim young things as they were then. One is a grandmother, and the other -- the lighter one -- never married. ROBERT BROWN: Your first interest in these two was in the lighter one. What do you think you were trying to get across when you did this portrait? Again, it's rather dignified, they're seen in three- quarter view, from the chest up, against a wall with a few details in the immediate background. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Apparently, from the looks of the wall, I must have done that in the girls' house. It isn't any furnishings that I have here. ROBERT BROWN: When you were in their house doing this, was there a lot of banter, was it fairly lively, or were you proceeding pretty soberly and with some, even timidity? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, there was a great deal of banter and fun. The portrait sessions were fun because these were friends of mine. Apparently a lot of this doesn't come through in the painting. But the paintings were experiences, all with young people together. Because all these people are my contemporaries, not paintings of my clients. ROBERT BROWN: Yes. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was just like . . . well, that was the about the spirit of it. ROBERT BROWN: Do you remember whether you were pleased with this painting or not? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yeah, I sort of liked it. But I didn't quite get all that I wanted to. As I said before, I'm not a portraitist, you might say. ROBERT BROWN: There's one other here . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That one there ought to be interesting . . . . ROBERT BROWN: . . . that you said you had something to say about -- a story or background lay behind it. It's a frontal view, again a bust, of a young woman, with a vaguely sketched landscape in the background. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE She was an interesting girl. I rather liked her but she married somebody else. She features often in a pencil drawing which I called "Busy Streets," where I'm standing with my arms around her, which was probably more dreams than reality. But at any rate she married somebody else, obviously. But the chap she married was named Avon Long. He took the part of Sportin' Life in one of the early productions of "Porgy and Bess." And he's still active in the theater even today, and I think has a part in the current musical revue called "Eubie." "Eubie" of course refers to Eubie Blake. Back in the 20's there was a musical called "Shuffle Along" which may have been a sort of theatrical breakthrough. There was a quartet - Miller & Lyles [?] and Cissel & Blake. I think Miller & Lyles were writers or musicians, and Blake played the piano -- he still does. He's the only one of the quartet that's still alive today, he's in his 90's. But "Shuffle Along" made a great hit. And I remember, in the chorus line of "Shuffle Along" was a long-legged brown beauty who became the toast of Paris -- her name was Josephine Baker. ROBERT BROWN: Oh yes. You saw that performance? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, I saw that performance. I think it was down on Tremont Street, the theater is still there. I've forgotten its name; I think it's been changed. ROBERT BROWN: This woman here was someone who was very attractive to you. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: Did you ever sit for her portrait? I mean, did you go to her place . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no, she came here to my house and I sat her down and made a portrait study of her. She had a kid sister. I saw this sister, we worked together at the Naval Shipyard back in the late 60's. She would report to me about this girl whose name had to be Gretchen. Of course Gretchen is now a grandmother. It's rather strange: I look at these portrait studies, and I see all of these young people, and I have to remember that all of them are my contemporaries. ROBERT BROWN: It's only in your paintings that they remain young. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Yes. ROBERT BROWN: The one I'm looking at now -- you say "Study of Auntie, April 16, 1931" -- the paint's laid on in warmer colors, more thickly, almost a fury, it seems to me -- there are curvings and sudden breaks in the brushstrokes. Could you explain this a bit? It looks very out of character, at least it's quite different from anything we've talked about earlier. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. This was done during my Frans Hals-Anders Zorn-John Singer Sargent period [Laughing] . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What do you mean by that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE These particular artists used very heavy strokes, thick brushstrokes, sort of almost slashing away. So I used that technique in this painting of my aunt. She was my father's brother's wife. Her name was Eliza Crite. So I made a rather quick study of her. So I guess in a way it's a much freer painting than some of the other sets in which I tried to get a certain amount of finish. As a result, in this painting I acquired a great deal more vitality than in the others. ROBERT BROWN: There's one last aspect of your work in the 30's that I thought we could talk about. [END OF THIS INTERVIEW] TAPE-RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH A. R. CRITE FEBRUARY 29, 1980 INTERVIEWER: ROBERT BROWN ROBERT BROWN: This is a continuation of the interview with Alan Rohan Crite, Robert Brown, interviewer, in Boston, Mass. The date is February 29, 1980. The last time, we'd been talking about your painting in the 1930's. Today I'd like to begin by asking you how you came to start drawing and painting liturgical, religious subjects, many of which seem to be set in glorious church interiors -- vestments, visions, and the like. How did that come about and when, more or less, did you begin doing these religious and liturgical subjects? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, of course I always did religious drawings. That was one of my ambitions. The stickmen drawings are a much earlier period and deals with that. But back in the 20's, there was movement of the Roman Catholic Church -- you might call it an apocalypse towards Black people; a sort of moving into that particular area. A friend of mine who was a very devout Roman Catholic thought he could bring me into the true religion, you might say. He knew I was an Episcopalian, so he figured it wouldn't be too much of a job to move me over. I have a habit of not "moving" unless I know what I'm doing. I had the normal education as far as the church was concerned -- the catechism classes and so forth -- but I didn't know too much about the church, really -- about this history of it, its liturgy, etc.; just what you get out of catechism class. ROBERT BROWN: You're talking about the Catholic catechism? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, Episcopal. When my friend went to work on me, I had no defenses, in a sense. So I decided to really look into the church, see what it was all about in many ways. That meant I had to study its history, its raison d'etre -- I mean, this idea of the bishops, priests, and deacons, which is of course one of the hallmarks of the Episcopal Church; their attitudes on the Eucharist. And then I went into study of the liturgy, etc. Well, in the Episcopal church you have two schools of thought. One is High Church, one is Low Church. Back in the 20's and 30's, that was a very, very vigorous point of discussion. ROBERT BROWN: You were involved in it to some degree? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Ye-e-ess, I was. Not too much, but I was aware of it. In the Low Church, they expressed the Protestant aspects of the Episcopal Church, while the High Church expressed the Catholic aspects of the church. There was quite a difference in many ways. If you go into a Low Church, the altar furnishings are very simple, and the priest who celebrated the Eucharist just wore the Catholic surplice and stole; whereas, if you went in a High Church, they had all the Eucharist vestments like chasubles, the whole bit. I was introduced to that the of St. John the Evangelist had -- they have a church down on Street -- and I became aware of the thrust, you might say, of the High Churchmen. In other words, I was convinced of one thing as far as the liturgy of the Catholic expression of Christianity. So my problem was to see whether such an expression existed in the Episcopal Church or not. ROBERT BROWN: What in the Catholic expression of Christianity were you convinced of? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, the doctrine of the Eucharist, the idea of the priesthood, and so on. ROBERT BROWN: And now you turned to see whether this existed in the Episcopal . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. The principal idea, as far as the ministry is concerned -- you see, the Episcopal Church claims the Catholic priesthood "perks" -- it claims that the Bishops are Bishops, and that they have the capability of ordaining priests, and so forth. The Roman Catholic Church in those days denied the validity of Anglican Orders, as they called it. They said that, because of a defect in the Edwardian orders [?] back in 1600 something-or-other, the Bishops didn't have the powers of ordination and consecration. Hence, all ordinations from that date on, as far as the Episcopal/Anglican church is concerned, were invalid, and so ceremonies like the celebration of the Eucharist, etc. were invalid because of the defective orders. It's a kind of legal question, in a way, but it was very much to the point back in those days. ROBERT BROWN: What did your look into the Episcopal Church reveal to you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That the argument of the invalidity of Anglican orders based on what was the arguments presented by the Roman Catholic Church in those days was, at the very least, dubious, and at the most didn't carry weight. It would be rather a long discussion to go into that, but more recently there has been a great deal of conversation between Canterbury and Rome, and the atmosphere is entirely different. ROBERT BROWN: Did this only heighten your religiosity? This search of yours? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] I guess so -- whatever "religiosity" is. What it did was to make me aware of things, very much aware of things. It was the best thing that ever happened, because it forced me to study the Church, the liturgy, etc. And of course there isn't much difference between the two liturgies -- rather, you might say that the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran liturgies are the Western liturgies of the church; belong to the same particular family. Then of course you have the Eastern liturgies, another variation -- I'm referring to the Greek Orthodox and the Eastern Rite churches. ROBERT BROWN: Did you think of maybe becoming a priest at that point? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. A lot of people thought I should. Some people still think I should. It's strange, in a way - - as I'm walking down the street even today and people say, "How do, Reverend" and [pitching his voice lower, and saying slowly] I say, "Hi." Once in a while I'm referred to as "Father." Apparently I give the impression of being somewhat sacerdotal, I don't know why. ROBERT BROWN: But in the 30's when you were examining these differences between the two churches, this when you were looking for something similar to the Catholic liturgy in the Episcopal Church, your expression was not decreased but -- what? What did you think to do? Did you have some reaction you wanted to convey? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. You see, my first job as I saw it was to reassure myself as far as the Episcopal Church was concerned -- as far as the total validity of the Church was concerned. ROBERT BROWN: And once you'd done that, as you said earlier, what did you then . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Then, of course, I had my information -- and of course I studied all of the liturgy, the Latin as well as the Anglican. ROBERT BROWN: Was your intention all along to express this as an artist? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Not necessarily. No. But it became an area of discipline for me to use later. Then, of course, I became interested in liturgical drawings. These drawings I made more or less as a result of that; I found expression in that. This particular drawing is of the Christmas Mass. It's based on experience. I don't regard myself as a mystic -- not that I have anything against mystics, I don't. What happened: the father of a dear friend of mine had died around Christmas time. He was a Baptist minister, and I was very much interested in his daughter. She represents one of my first mistakes -- the two girls whom I could have married (not both of them at the same time -- [He laughs] I don't believe in bigamy and I'm not a Muslim). Anyhow, this particular girl was my childhood sweetheart. Everybody thought we were going to get married. I just let her drift out of my life. At that time her father died, at Christmas time, and this was in the midst of my QUOTE Catholic revival UNQUOTE. I was assisting the priest at the midnight celebration of the Eucharist . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Where was this? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE At St. Bartholomew's church in Cambridge. And at the consecration I had this sense that behind the altar there was this presence of the Christ child and the Mother. It was a vivid impression -- I didn't see anything like that; it was just something that I sensed. So I made this drawing trying to interpret that impression that I had. Of course I used the complete vestments there -- the priest in the chasuble, the subdeacon behind what is known as the humeral veil -- "humer" comes, I think, from the word shoulder -- in which he holds the and then that's brought up to the altar after the consecration. This is the moment when the bread is consecrated -- this is what I tried to show, and to get all the glory of the altar, the angels, the whole thing. ROBERT BROWN: And it's done in great taste; very precisely; very careful drawing. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I paid a great deal of attention to detail in regard to the etiquette of the Mass, to be sure it was liturgically correct. ROBERT BROWN: Was this just done for you, sort of a pious reaction to this very exalted moment for you -- this moment of vision? Or did you have in mind to convey your feelings to other people through your drawing? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. All my drawings are designed for somebody else, not designed for me. ROBERT BROWN: In this case whom did you have in mind? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE People in general. I just wanted to convey something to people as a whole. The drawings are instructive. All my work is designed -- I'm telling a story. As a matter of fact, the old African tradition -- what they call a giro: storyteller. That's what I've been doing all of my life in all my drawings. I'm a storyteller. ROBERT BROWN: You think this is just in your nature, in your heritage, to do so? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Hesitantly] Ye-e-es. I hesitate to say that [Laughing] because it might have all kinds of interpretations -- that I have within me a sense of the continuity of the African tradition, which of course I don't. The African tradition which I might have is one which is acquired. It's more in the nature of a recovery, in a way, rather than a continuous tradition -- in the same sense as one might say he's an Anglo-Saxon, or someone else who's had an interruption . . . . ROBERT BROWN: The actors in this whole liturgical scene of consecration are all Black. Is this the way it was in the vision at that time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's the interpretation that I used. St. Bartholomew's Church is a Black church, so I had that. ROBERT BROWN: That's part of the factual setup . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. A lot of people did ask my why I used Black figures in the depiction of people in the Bible. I might note here that I work on several levels. One level is painting the life of black people in the city, just ordinary people as I see them, the neighborhood paintings. Then another level was illustrating the spiritual, so I used the Black figures. In that case I was just telling the story of Black people, and using the Black figures because the spirituals are related to Black people naturally. Then there's another area where I used the Black figures such as in these particular liturgical drawings and similar things. There I was using the Black figure to tell the story of man. So the Black figure in this particular sense goes beyond, you might say, the parochial, racial idea. That's just the story of Man being told with the Black figure. Those are the three levels on which I worked. ROBERT BROWN: And you consciously distinguished these three tracks, throughout your work? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: The one is the locals of the street scene or whatever. The other is symbolic Man, using Black figures. And there's the third, which is spiritual -- now, the spirituals were also something you began working with, at the time. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. The thing with the spirituals was this: I used the Catholic medium as the means of depicting the spirituals. ROBERT BROWN: The Catholic medium -- what do you mean by that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The use of the liturgy, the vestments, all of the paraphernalia. And I did that on purpose, because the vestments and all the rest of it you might call a kind of language -- it's a vocabulary. So I used that particular vocabulary to tell the story of the spirituals. I did that on purpose because -- you see, most of Christianity is familiar with the Catholic expression -- like Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and so on. Therefore, if I tell the story of spirituals using that particular medium, people will get an idea what it's all about. People who are Protestant, and the Black people from whom the spirituals come, they get an understanding of another dimension as far as the richness of the spirituals is concerned. ROBERT BROWN: Can we look at perhaps an illustration? This is one of the first published of "Were You there?" That came out in the 30's. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I did the drawings in the 30's, the book itself was published in the 40's. ROBERT BROWN: We'll just look at a representative illustration from "Were You There?" -- for example, the initial one: "Were You There When They Crucified?" Could you explain wherein the richness lay for, say, a Protestant, as opposed to one who would pick up the liturgical symbolism? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, in the way I've shown St. John the Evangelist, for example. He's vested in a cope with the symbol of the eagle. And then, in the halo around the Virgin, I've used the 12 stars representing the 12 tribes of Israel. There's a cruciform halo for the Christ. The Crucifixion spiritual is interesting in a way because what I've done there is to show it in its peak scene, and I've used the background of the city for it. ROBERT BROWN: And in that measure you meant to relate to those who wouldn't pick up necessarily the liturgical overtones, -- they could relate to the street scenes. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. So I showed the thing as contemporary. Then of course there's a liturgical aspect to that, too. Through the liturgy, you see, events of the past are made a part of the present. The celebration of the Mass, etc. is a form of the drama. In that way the past is made present. Or you might say we are made part of an ever-growing congregation of people. All of that is behind us, behind these illustrations. ROBERT BROWN: Did you know these spirituals very well yourself? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I did. The spirituals are more or less a part of my tradition vicariously, you might say. My mother knew them, of course, quite well. She lived in Philadelphia at about the turn of the century, and they used to have these big camp meetings in a place called Darby, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, then. These people would get together at these big meetings. They'd have choirs of people singing the spirituals. The choirs at the camp meetings in those days were huge. I guess the nearest comparable thing today might be one of Billy Graham's things. And they were quite formal -- the men wore Prince Alberts, the women were formally dressed. Sometimes when one speaks of camp meetings, and especially of Black people's, you get the idea of a sort of undisciplined shouting thing. If anyone is familiar with some of the movies that were made -- for instance, "Green Pastures," that they made into a movie; and some of the other movies. Sincere, but the whole thing is so darned staged. But at these camp meetings, the people sang spirituals. And of course, back then, around 1900 or 1899, a lot of those present had had the actual experience of slavery. So when they sang spirituals, it means something different than what you get nowadays. You had, then, these huge choirs, maybe about 1,000 people singing in the choir. This made a tremendous impression on my mother, and she conveyed somehow that impression to me. And in one of the spirituals that I portrayed -- it's called "Heaven" -- she said that in the way I showed the chorus of people moving in this particular series of drawings, somehow I had captured that spirit. ROBERT BROWN: Could we have a look at that? [END OF THIS SIDE] [TAPE 2, SIDE 1] [BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE 2] ROBERT BROWN: This is the second side of the Archives tape, and we're talking now about the illustrations of spirituals, particularly with your mother's comment in mind -- that you had really got at the spirit of the spirituals and the singing of them as your mother remembered them. What's the one we're looking at right now? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That's one of the closing drawings for the spiritual called "Heaven." I have the choirs moving on as they're singing. This is, she says, the way they did it. She wondered how I got the idea. She didn't exactly tell me that, but apparently there would be a long line of these people, lined up together. And they'd be moving along singing the spirituals pretty much as I have them here. ROBERT BROWN: They're very solemn; it's almost like ranks. And they're also very elaborately dressed in liturgical robes with it looks like bishops' mitres, or crowns . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, a couple of crowns. Since this is a spiritual dealing with Heaven, everybody's crowned with heavenly crowns. And I've used the vestments like the cope and you might say the dalmatic, and underneath that the alb. ROBERT BROWN: These are all heavily embroidered, decorated. That's the first scene from the spiritual "Heaven." What followed -- a series of several, didn't you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE This is another drawing of the same spiritual. These are the final drawings of this particular hymn. These are just showing the saints going before the Throne of God. I've used the liturgy again. I've used the young boy, here, with the vestments -- the dalmatic, the alb underneath, and he's carrying a censer and is being followed by the saints, who, as they pass the Throne of God, they lift up their crowns. Around God are shown the figures of the trinity, indicated by the triangle in the midst of the halo. And then the crown of the figure, of the A, the Alpha and the Omega. Then, around are the cherubim. I don't show the songs here but I do show it in another drawing. [He pauses to search] I think maybe this last drawing -- yes. This drawing here shows a throne underneath the Throne of God. Thrones there are shown as winged wheels. See, there are nine choirs of angels according to Byzantine tradition. These nine choirs are divided into three groups. The first group, which is closest to God, are the cherubim and seraphim enthroned. Then there's another group called, I think, counsellors, principalities, and powers. And there's a third group called virtues, archangels and angels. Each has their own particular sign. Here I've shown the cherubim and seraphim enthroned. The thrones uphold the Throne of God . . . . ROBERT BROWN: The thrones of angels uphold the . . . what shall I say, the ultimate Throne, the Throne of God? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Then of course He's surrounded by the cherubim and seraphim. The seraphim usually have six wings, painted red, and the cherubim usually have four wings, painted blue. The seraphim and the red represent the Love of God and the blue represents the Wisdom of God. I say "cherubim" -- sometimes people think of these cute little babies, with cute little wings, that they call "cherubs." That's rather unfortunate; that came from, I guess, the Roman putti. How they ever wandered into the picture I don't know. The cherubim mean the Old Testament, like huge winged lions with men's faces; that's one idea of cherubim in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the cherubim would be, as indicated here -- like these over here - might have four wings. And the seraphim have six. ROBERT BROWN: And the crowd here are the saints. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Bowing down before the Throne of God. These of course were drawings; they were never colored. Is that right? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, they never were. These are all brush drawings. ROBERT BROWN: Were you inclined, and if you could now, would you have worked them up into paintings, with all the colors such as you've just described? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. The things are designed as black-and-white brush drawings. The color is supplied by the person who looks at them. ROBERT BROWN: This is an intentional thing on your part. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: When you look at them, for example, these colors, these descriptions from the Bible, and all, come forth to you? As you look at that drawing, it takes on color, you might say? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well I see color. Even though I might do a thing in black-and-white, I see it in terms of color, naturally. But then I let the other people see the color, too. ROBERT BROWN: These were published in the 40's. These are mostly drawings from the 30's. And the first one to be published was "Were You There?" ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: That was published by Harvard University Press. How did that come about, do you recall? Did somebody approach you, or did you approach them? Had your drawings been exhibited someplace, so that you were fairly well known? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I'd given several lectures and illustrated them with these drawings. I've illustrated 12 spirituals [Pausing] or maybe it's 11 spirituals. Only four have been published. I planned to do 13. The original scheme was to do two books on the Old Testament, three books on the New Testament. The first was going to be "Go Down Moses," and accompanying that would be "Steal Away." The reason I prepared them together because "Moses" is the idea of freedom of people, and "Steal Away" is freedom from the earth, you might say. Then the second book was going to be "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." Then I think I was going to have the spiritual "Somebody's Knocking at Your Door" to accompany that. The third book was going to be the Christmas spirituals, that is, "Oh Mary, Where Is the Child?" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain." And then there was going to be a spiritual on the ministry of Christ, -- "I Know the Lord," I think. The fourth volume was going to consist of "I Know the Lord, He Laid His Hands on Me." And then there was going to be a Palm Sunday spiritual, and the Crucifixion spiritual. And "Oh Lord, Have mercy on Me," which would be a Holy Communion spiritual. ROBERT BROWN: Did you work out this scheme with somebody? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no, I worked it out for myself. ROBERT BROWN: Who was it that picked up this interest? Was it some particular group of people that were interested? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE And the fifth book was going to be this one here called "Three Spirituals." ROBERT BROWN: Who did you go to? Was there anybody that wanted to have these published? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, how that came about is kind of interesting. Professor Kenneth Conant at Harvard University became interested . . . . ROBERT BROWN: How did he get to know about them? Through his friendship with you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Then he saw the drawings. And, as I mentioned, I used to give lectures on liturgical art back in the 40's. I gave talks at the Museum of Contemporary Art -- in those days it was called the Museum of Modern Art. ROBERT BROWN: Oh, you did? This was a lecture to artists mainly, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. They just had me come in and I gave the lecture -- I gave a whole lot of lectures back in the 40's; I was quite busy doing that. So, Kenneth Conant became acquainted with the work and became interested. He happened to know Mr. Scaife [sp?], who was the Editor of the Press at the time. He approached him and Harvard said, "Okay, we'll try, give it a whirl." So they came out with the "Were You There?" in 1944. It sold out. But it wasn't reprinted because that was during the War, so they couldn't do anything -- shortages, etc. Later on, Harvard did the "Three Spirituals" in 1948. And the "All Glory," that's the prayer consecration. I did that, also in '48. That was printed by the Cowley [sp?] philes [?]. I'd been associated and acquainted with the " " for quite a long while, by then. There was quite a body of interest -- the Cowleyphiles did a lot, in exhibitions and promotion of the work. So there was a great deal going for the "Spirituals." ROBERT BROWN: In your lectures, what did you generally talk about? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The Church , the meaning of it, the use, etc. ROBERT BROWN: What did you think the use would be of these illustrations of spirituals? Religious? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The idea of illustrating the spirituals came about because I listened to the radio, back in those days. I heard a radio announcer say, with all good intentions, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, we'll listen to this beloved spiritual called 'Old Black Joe.'" I kind of figured we were in trouble, because that isn't a spiritual; it wasn't composed by Black people. I had a feeling that the spirituals were being lost. What I did was just try to illustrate a few of them, so that people would get an idea that spirituals are hymns of the church, part of the religious musical literature of the world. That's why I illustrated them. Almost as an act of preservation. ROBERT BROWN: Did you see them as knowledge of them being lost . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. When you get an announcement like that [He laughs] ROBERT BROWN: I'm sure you do! What about among Black people themselves? Did you feel there was a need for them to know more about them? Or did you find they were sort of getting distorted with the passage of time, and you wanted to capture them in their purity? Did that ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Slowly, after reflecting] Not really. I mean, as far as Black people were concerned, the spirituals were a part of some of their life. But of course spirituals have been transferred from, you might say, QUOTE the Church UNQUOTE to the concert stage; like Roland Hayes. And then there were the Fisk Jubilee Singers and other groups of singers wandering around the countryside and elsewhere, singing spirituals as a fund-raising thing. ROBERT BROWN: Did you know any of these singers -- Roland Hayes? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: What was he like? Did you know him when you were a young man? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. To me as a young man he was one of these exalted, distant persons. But there was a kind of personal tie as far as Mr. Hayes was concerned. He used to live on Greenwich Street, if I remember rightly. My mother and I lived on Greenwich Street for a short time. He lived on one end of the street, and my mother was apparently in the middle of the street. Anyhow, he opened his windows and of course he'd be practicing. So my mother had the pleasure of hearing him under what you might call informal circ*mstances. But later, of course, we knew him, and by that time he'd sung to crowned heads, etc. We used to go to his house every once in a while. ROBERT BROWN: He'd moved away? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. After he became well known, he bought a house out in Brookline. So we used to go out there every now and then. He'd open the house up for Africans to come and give talks. The last time we saw him was several years ago. My mother and I were looking for someplace to live; we had to move from 2 Dilworth Street, so we saw Mr. Hayes. He had some suggestions. That was the last time we saw him alive -- he was well into his 80's by then. He wrote the forward to one of the books of the "Spirituals" . . . . ROBERT BROWN: This [book] is Roland Hayes' Introduction to "Three Spirituals," February 1948. He talks about their simplicity which is deceptive, but actually, he says, they're filled with grandeur and symbolism to which he thinks you've contributed; you've brought that out in your illustrations. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, the spirituals are deceptive. I remember one time during the Civil Rights movement, I was talking to a young priest. He spoke about the spirituals. He said, "The spirituals are slave songs. We sing songs of freedom." I appreciated his sentiments but I thought his facts were wrong. The spirituals are quite valid even today. The point of them was: they stressed the idea of a person's humanity within a system which denied that humanity. That happened to be the formal system of slavery. Today, we have a formal system of technology which does practically the same thing in many ways. It denies your human dignity. Something like spirituals are needed to reinforce the idea of the fact that we're human beings. ROBERT BROWN: And particularly the relation of the human being to God? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, the human being to God and the human being to fellow humans. The spirituals are quite practical. People sometimes think of them they work on several levels, you might say. The spirituals of course were hymns; they were oral tradition. People, a lot of them, didn't know how to read, so they used this form of hymn as an oral tradition. They were instruments of worship. They were also instruments of communication. There's a great deal of symbolism, like the River Jordan would be the Ohio River. And there's a great deal of code business in them. For example, somebody would say "There's going to be a great camp meeting in the Promised Land." All the massa would hear would be this great camp meeting in the Promised Land interesting; that's all he heard. The message was "There's going to be a meeting someplace." Then too they were commentaries on the Scriptures; therefore the admonitions of how to live one's life. The point was that, no matter what your station was, you were responsible for that life which you had. So, they function on several levels. My friend looked upon them, of course, as being slave songs, I guess, with the "pie in the sky" idea -- that you'll get your reward in Heaven by and by. ROBERT BROWN: The speaker back in the 60's. In the 30's, your fellow Blacks felt they were proud of these illustrations, they were interested in this, they were proud of their spirituals. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They were interested and sometimes a little curious. The idea of "Black is beautiful" hadn't caught on, back in the 30's. You see, there were terrible things which were going on. Being Black back there, there wasn't much of a role image, [Hesitates] I don't know how to say it. But you see, Africa, back in those days, the image you got of Africa, was man-eating cannibals, wild animals, Tarzan of the Apes, and the Rider Haggard story of King Solomon's Mines -- that kind of mythology. And Africa in those days was under the rule of colonial powers like England and France, etc. Information about Benin and Yoruba peoples, the kinds of Benin and Ifi [sp?] -- that kind of stuff wasn't available on a popular basis. The picture you got of Africa was something like that. And the depiction of Blacks in the United States was either of sharecroppers or jazz Blacks of Harlem. Anything with "Blackness" in it wasn't always met with great favor. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, but there was this continuous barrage of propaganda, advertising, in which a Black person was just simply invisible. If you look in magazines like Ebony, even in the 50's, they're full of skin lightness and hair-straighteners. So, my coming out with this idea of Black people, the way I did it, in the liturgy and the spirituals, bothered some Black people and encouraged a lot of others. ROBERT BROWN: They were really rather bold things in their time. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I was a revolutionary [Laughing] in many ways. ROBERT BROWN: It's interesting, on the other hand, to see that the Phillips Collection and the Museum of Modern Art acquired two of your paintings of street scenes. In other words, sort of social, realism, rather than this kind of thing. Do you suppose the white world in the 30's was more interested simply in looking at the American scene rather than the very personal, the spiritual Black concern that you express in the "Spirituals?" ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Carefully] Not really. As a matter of fact, as far as the white world QUOTE, UNQUOTE, is concerned, I always have a problem with that. Everything moved. I mean, the paintings moved, the drawings moved, and everything moved. One of the popular things I did . . . . ROBERT BROWN: "Everything moved" -- you mean, everything sold, or everything got shown? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Everything got shown, everything moved. Not rapidly, that was during the Depression, but one of the most popular things I did was a pamphlet called "Is It Nothing To You?" That came out also in 1948. That went nationally, as far as the Episcopal Church was concerned. That was a Black figure. ROBERT BROWN: That was a story about what? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The story of the Passion against a background of the city streets. The theme was a variation of the "Were You There?", the Crucifixion spiritual. This particular drawing, here, of the Christmas Mass, that was used as the cover design of the national publication of the Episcopal church back in '48. So there was a great deal of acceptance all the way around. It made its impact. I have no idea of knowing how great an impact. The only thing is, every once in a while I get a feedback that sort of humbles me, when a priest comes and tells me -- and these are mostly white priests -- they're in the business because of the drawings I made. The work which I do -- the drawings and all that kind of work, the reactions to them, people either like them and with enthusiasm, or they dislike them with [Laughing] equal enthusiasm. ROBERT BROWN: What are some of the reasons why they dislike them? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, some folks may be bothered with Blackness, something like that. Then of course, with style, which has nothing to do with the subject matter -- some people like a certain style in drawing, others don't. For example, some people might think that Thomas Benton's things are wonderful, other people . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Yes. Your style was not a conscious choice? It was just the way you sort of automatically did it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, yes, my style is my personal style, just like anybody's style of work. You can tell Michelangelo's things or Leonardo's things . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Sure. Although your paintings of the 30's are often much quieter or with heavier figures sometimes -- some of the paintings that we discussed earlier. Your drawings are another medium, perhaps that gives you a lightness of hand and a precision. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, yes. I work within the disciplines of the medium. But it would be my style of work all the way through, though. [END OF THIS DAY'S INTERVIEW] TAPE-RECORDED INTERVIEW WITH A. R. CRITE AUGUST 22, 1980 INTERVIEWER: ROBERT BROWN ROBERT BROWN: Mr. Crite, we haven't talked, at least in any detail, about your affiliation or your showing with the Society of Independent Artists in Boston. About when was that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I became associated with the Boston Society of Independent Artists around 1929. The way it happened was, I went up to Tamworth, N.H., and worked on the farm estate of Walter Killum [sp?] He was one of the officers of the Boston Society. When I came back, he suggested I become a member. ROBERT BROWN: What did you do while you were in Tamworth? You painted, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. It was almost just being away from home for awhile, almost like camping out. ROBERT BROWN: He selected you and other artists to come up there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, he just had me come up. It isn't quite clear as to how or why I was there. I'll have to look back in my journal -- I think I was writing a journal, then -- and see. ROBERT BROWN: You came back in the Fall of 1929? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: What as the Society? What did you find it to be like? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The principal function of the Society was to have an annual non-juried show. What happened was, there were quite a few well-known artists in it, and it gave them an opportunity to discover unknown artists and present them to the public. The show was down at Beacon Hill in a place called The Barn, I think it's on Joy Street. My first showing there was about 1929. ROBERT BROWN: What do you recall showing? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] A couple of watercolors. ROBERT BROWN: Was there critical reaction? Was it written up in the newspapers? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, it was, but I wasn't written up, the show was written up by the art critics. Sometimes they panned things and praised others, etc. ROBERT BROWN: Was the purpose of this partly for artists who couldn't get a showing in regular galleries and clubs? Or people who resented juries? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE N-n-no. My feeling was it was the idea of partly discovering new talent. An artist like myself wouldn't be able to show in a gallery because nobody knew me. So by taking part in the Boston Society, that was one way of getting the work out. ROBERT BROWN: You were still an art student at that time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I'd just started at the Museum school, in '29. ROBERT BROWN: What effect did this have on you, this first show, do you remember? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, it was very exciting. ROBERT BROWN: Did you get to meet some other artists? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I met Charles Holly Pepper. I think another one was Hopkinson -- Charles Hopkinson. ROBERT BROWN: What were these men like, do you recall? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They were very generous and very kind and very understanding. I think I met William Brooks Hazelton -- as a matter of fact I studied under him up in, I think it was Gloucester, maybe it was Rockport [Laughing], I can't remember which. There were others whose names I can't remember offhand -- this is going back almost a half a century. ROBERT BROWN: Of course. These people were being very generous and kind. Did you get to know Pepper? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Not to any great degree . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What was he like, as a person, do you recall? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, he was a very understanding type of person, as I just vaguely recall. He bought some of my things later on. ROBERT BROWN: Well, among students, this was probably pretty unusual, to have a show, wasn't it? Did most of your fellow students have shows as well? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE That I don't recall. There may have been other Museum school students taking part in this show but I can't remember offhand. At any rate, I showed for awhile. I'm looking at my records here, a record compiled by the Library. ROBERT BROWN: Which years do they indicate -- through the 30's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. 1929 was my first showing. Then, 1930. Apparently, from the looks of this thing, these are watercolors. Then there seems to be a break of a year; I must look in my journal to see what happened. 1932, called "A Back Yard." I don't know what that was; it may have been a watercolor. Then there's a painting called "Cl r's Child," an oil painting, I have that here. ROBERT BROWN: That was of what? Was that a portrait? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh no, it's just a young family standing on some steps and some children. The painting is upstairs. Then, in 1934, there's a big thing called "Settling the World's Problems." That was an oil. That one is when I got my formal recognition. I was introduced, you might say, by Mr. Corcoran/Cochran. He was the dean of art critics at that time. He wrote for the Boston Transcript. They made a big to-do about it -- there were photographs of the painting in newspapers. That you might say was my formal introduction. ROBERT BROWN: That's when to people you became much better known. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, yes. ROBERT BROWN: Did this result in your having additional exhibits at that time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The Grace (Holmes) Horne Gallery became interested. This was in 1934. ROBERT BROWN: Did she show you several times? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, later on they did. The Gallery acted as my patron, you might say, for several years. Then, in 1935 there was another oil painting, called "Thus Saith the Lord." I have a sketch of that around somewhere. ROBERT BROWN: You're talking now about the exhibits of the Society of Independent Artists? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. In 1936 there's another painting, called "The Children's Pilgrimage." This was the Stations of the Cross pilgrimage at St. Augustin's Church in Boston, Roxbury. That painting is still in existence, it's at the St. Augustin's church now. ROBERT BROWN: By that time you were mainly doing liturgical subjects? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No, I was doing both. ROBERT BROWN: You were doing both that and neighborhood scenes? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. All of these things went on at the same time. ROBERT BROWN: Would it be through these shows or, say, through the Grace Horne Gallery that people like Duncan Phillips in Washington got to know of your work? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, I guess it would be through that. ROBERT BROWN: Did he contact you directly? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Through the Gallery, I think. For that I'd have to go back and look at my journal, because I did keep an active journal back then. In 1937, there was "Columbus Avenue." That was reviewed. There was a photograph of it in the newspapers. ROBERT BROWN: Was that acquired by someone? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. That painting "Columbus Avenue," "Thus Saith the Lord" and the "Settling the World's Problems" -- I think I sold those paintings during the Depression. At a ridiculous sum -- I think about $35 each, something like that. I wish I could get hold [Laughing] of those paintings! I've been hearing some rumors. There's a chap down on Kneeland [?] Street, a wool merchant. He bought the paintings. He may have bought some more. He kept them there, kind of like an investment. His son, I think, has or had a book store on Massachusetts Avenue near Harvard Square. I think the book store isn't in existence or is under another name, something like that. I was talking to Byron Rushing [phon. sp.] and he said he came in contact with a dealer who said he saw these paintings fairly recently. So Byron is trying to track them down and see what can be done. If these things are stored away, maybe you can walk in and say casually, "Well, what's this?" And if the dealer isn't too aware, might pick them up. ROBERT BROWN: This is something you might want to do. But at the time, in the Depression, you had to sell to make some money. Your mother must have been extremely proud of this recognition you were getting so young. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Ye-e-es, I guess so. ROBERT BROWN: Did she openly tell you this? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Hesitating] Yes and no. My mother backed me. At this time of course my father was ill; he was ill from 1929 until 1937 when he died. So I got complete backing from my mother. And of course I was in art school, in the Museum School of Fine Arts; I was there on tuition scholarships. So I got thorough backing from that. And Mother was working -- she was intensely interested that I get an education. And she was criticized for it by some people. Some people said, "You ought to take that boy out of school and put him to work." And on a short-term basis, they were very right. But on a long-term basis, it would have been a disaster. The fact that I'm sitting down here now, retired, is the result of the fact that I earned my living by drawing. In 1938 there's an other painting, called "A Car Stop." ROBERT BROWN: That was another genre painting? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, these are all genre paintings. This one, I think, is at the Boston Athenaeum. I think it's called "Northampton and Washington Streets." I did two paintings [Hesitating] -- the reason I'm hesitating is because I'm looking at the dates: 1936, I was with the WPA; I did quite a few paintings then . . . . ROBERT BROWN: They commissioned urban scenes, too? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I did easel paintings for the WPA. They gave you free rein. ROBERT BROWN: Those paintings were sent to Washington, those paintings? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes, some were. I lost track of a lot of them. There are maybe eight or nine paintings that I have a record of . . . . ROBERT BROWN: You don't know where they are now? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. One painting that I have a record of, called "School's Out." I did that in '36. That was in the Museum of Modern Art in a WPA show there, but it's now in the Fine Arts [Nat'l Collection of Fine Arts Museum] collection of the Smithsonian Institution. They used that recently in this calendar thing, as you've seen. I recently purchased another painting called "Sunlight and Shadow." I did that in 1941; that's also part of the Collection. ROBERT BROWN: They purchased that from you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: This was one, another urban scene, a genre? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. I did a lot of that. You see, my oil paintings once were genre. ROBERT BROWN: Would you go out -- did you set up your easel in the street? Or did you work from sketches in your studio? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I worked from sketches. ROBERT BROWN: Did you enjoy doing that kind of study? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I did it on purpose, you see. The idea was to establish a record, just to show the life of Black people in an ordinary setting -- to show them "just as people" and not a social problem. The paintings weren't editorializing or anything like that. ROBERT BROWN: Were you criticized by Blacks at that time for not being a little more political? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. At least I don't remember anything like that. You see, I was doing about three things at the same time. I was doing these genre paintings -- oils, watercolors and drawings. Then I was doing the liturgical drawings; they were Blacks [these were brush drawings]. And then I was illustrating the spirituals. ROBERT BROWN: By the way, were the liturgical drawings being done for certain patrons, or certain people? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. It was just part of my own Catholic revival. I went through, you might say, a personal Catholic revival of an Episcopalian. I was, I am. So I went through a period from Low Church to High Church, if I may use that expression. Then I became interested in the liturgy, so I made these drawings just for the sake of making them. But out of that came these blockprint Stations of the Cross which were sold around and about. The Museum of Fine Arts has a set, purchased around 1945 or 46, something like that; I can't remember exactly. ROBERT BROWN: Well, not to go into any great detail, but how long were you then involved with the Society show -- the Society of Independent Artists? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I'm surprised, because I was involved with it from 1929 to 1958. ROBERT BROWN: Was that about as long as they continued? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Apparently. Apparently they went out of existence in '58, at least the records don't go any further than that. ROBERT BROWN: Perhaps you did no more than habitually send something over for their show, but you weren't otherwise involved. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Or were you? Were you ever an active member, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE As a matter of fact, I think that the purpose of the Society was its annual exhibition. ROBERT BROWN: And nothing much more than that? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I don't recall any other activity. ROBERT BROWN: Was Walter Killum [?] the person who got you into the Society? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: What was he like? He lived up there, at their place. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He was an architect, and he was Old Yankee [Laughing], in a way. The Eastern part of their firm was called, I think, Killum, Hopkins & Greeley. I don't know whether that firm exists today or not. ROBERT BROWN: What was he like as a person to you? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He was a sort of patriarchal type of person. One almost thinks of him, I guess, like maybe one of the early Pilgrim Fathers [Laughing]. He was a very kindly, understanding sort of a person. I became acquainted with another architect, McGinniss [?]. He designed the altar for Trinity Church; he did quite a few things. I became acquainted with -- rather, I just met -- Ralph Adams Cram. And I had some dealings with Carnick [sp?], Charles Carnick. [Voice overlaps w. interviewer's; name obscured] ROBERT BROWN: What was your relations with McGinniss? Did you do some design for him? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE He was very much interested in my work, so he more or less sent me down to New York and got me acquainted with Rambush . . . . ROBERT BROWN: The lighting people? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. And they did church decorations. So he got me acquainted with them. Through that introduction, I was able to be with the Rambush Decorating Co. for 14 months or so. ROBERT BROWN: This was after the War; this was in the late 40's? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE This would be in the 50's -- '49 and '50 I was with the Rambush Decorating Co. ROBERT BROWN: You were already, though, a draftsman at the Naval Yard. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: So you did this part-time? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Well, what happened . . . . ROBERT BROWN: You got a leave of absence? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No -- yes, I did, I got a fourth leave of absence [laughing] . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Or they cut back on staff? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. My Civil Service was sort of off and on. I was there from about 1940, '43, '43, something like that. Then I went back again. Then I was laid off again. And in that period, from about 1948 to the latter part of 1950, I was off in the Navy Dept. But during that time I was with Rambush Decorating co. Then when I got through with them, the Navy called me back. And then I stayed on until I retired in 1970. ROBERT BROWN: Now -- to go back -- what was McGinniss like, as you recall? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I remember him almost like a patriarchal figure. ROBERT BROWN: But he was no Yankee. Did you and he discuss things quite a bit? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. I did but -- we were sort of caught up in what you'd call a "liturgical art movement." It was strong in the Catholic church, in those days. There was a kind of school of thought, you might almost say. Among other people I ran into was, I think his name was Cary Graham -- no Graham Cary/Carey. Used to live out on E. Garden Street. They were sort of tied in with the English school of artists, like Eric Gill, for example. ROBERT BROWN: What did they think they were doing? What were they striving for in their liturgical art? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They were trying to put some good art into the Catholic church. Because, you see, they had all these plaster saints and stuff like that, put up by -- I forget the name of the companies. ROBERT BROWN: How did they think they could upgrade the art of the Catholic church? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE By putting in original works of art, and designing the places, things like that. They had some support from the Cardinal. ROBERT BROWN: You went to New York and worked Rambush. Who in that firm did you principally work with? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE The whole company. It was run like a studio, you know. I think the Rambush Decorating Co. is probably the nearest counterpart to a Renaissance studio that you could find. ROBERT BROWN: You mean they had a whole range of craftsmen and artist? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: How did you fit in there? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I was in the mural department. Then I did design some glass for a Protestant church. I made a tabernacle design -- tabernacle candlesticks, as I recall. ROBERT BROWN: Your principal project was for a mural, wasn't it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. ROBERT BROWN: Could we talk about that a bit? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE I did something else while I was with them. I designed the baldocchino ceiling for the Franciscan Monastery in Washington. ROBERT BROWN: Was that to be a mosaic, or . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Yes. Well, it was a strange kind of thing, absolutely hard to describe. I designed the thing and it was painted on copper. The drawing was delineated by means of copper wire. Since a baldocchino ceiling is about 35 feet above the altar, looking up at it from the floor, you'd get the effect of cloisonné enamel. It was quite an experiment . . . . ROBERT BROWN: What sort of paint did you use, on copper? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They used an enamel paint. All I did was make up the cartoons, then the craftsmen did the actual execution from the cartoons. ROBERT BROWN: Did you supervise them closely when they were doing it? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE To a degree. Not closely, but that they follow the design. ROBERT BROWN: What about the color? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, I indicated the color. ROBERT BROWN: Could you correct them? Did you have the veto power on it as the designer? How did things work . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE What I did was the design, what they called the full-scale cartoon. Then it was turned over to the people who did the execution. ROBERT BROWN: They weren't there, obviously . . . they carried . . . . ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. Then they installed it and everything like that. I was working with a sculptor named Gleb Derujinsky. He made the decoration for the columns of this baldocchino. ROBERT BROWN: How did you and Derujinsky work together? I mean, he did the columns, and you did the ceiling . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Two separate projects. ROBERT BROWN: You coordinated your styles? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE No. The things are entirely different in style. ROBERT BROWN: How would you describe your style for that ceiling? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE [Laughing] Well, it's more like a . . . . ROBERT BROWN: Stylized? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh, you'd have to be highly stylized, because the drawing was indicated by the wire . . . you can only do certain things with it. ROBERT BROWN: You'd simplify. ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes, quite a lot. I suppose you might think of it almost like a stained-glass technique, a very early stained-glass technique, in that the drawing would be delineated by the lead lines more than anything else. ROBERT BROWN: Were there figures? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE Oh yes. ROBERT BROWN: So you brought about faces, and expressions . . . ? ALLAN ROHAN CRITE They were very simplified. I should have had some
PicClick Insights - AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST ALLAN ROHAN CRITE DRAWING 1930'S 12 1/2 X 19 in BOSTON PicClick Exclusive
- Popularity - 1 watcher, 0.3 new watchers per day, 4 days for sale on eBay. Normal amount watching. 0 sold, 1 available.
- Best Price -
- Seller - 4,939+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.
Popularity - AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST ALLAN ROHAN CRITE DRAWING 1930'S 12 1/2 X 19 in BOSTON
1 watcher, 0.3 new watchers per day, 4 days for sale on eBay. Normal amount watching. 0 sold, 1 available.
Price - AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST ALLAN ROHAN CRITE DRAWING 1930'S 12 1/2 X 19 in BOSTON
Seller - AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST ALLAN ROHAN CRITE DRAWING 1930'S 12 1/2 X 19 in BOSTON
4,939+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.
Recent Feedback
People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive
- Original Acrylic Painting By African American Artist Andrew Turner
£590.62 0 Bids 4d 13h
- Allan Morgan - Crimson Fields (12 x 12) (Original Framed) - In Stock
£460.00 Buy It Now 7d 12h
- Antique c. 1800’s Oil Painting Miniature Portrait Old Woman Lady Framed Signed
£25.99 2 Bids 4d 14h
- Allan Morgan - Bluebell Field (12 x 12) (Original Framed) - In Stock
£460.00 Buy It Now 7d 12h
- VTG Original George Grunblatt Oil Paintings - 1964 New Orleans Unframed
£500.84 Buy It Now 23h 42m
- Allan Morgan - Look to the Horizon (12 x 12) (Original Framed) - In Stock
£460.00 Buy It Now 13d 12h
- Antique Vintage African American Portrait By Keene Tribal Sculpture Drawing Mod
£680.40 Buy It Now 16d 19h
- Helen Bolin Abstract Gold Painted Plaster Fish Relief -Louisiana Artist 20x10
£189.00 Buy It Now 26d 0h
- 1830's Miniature Portrait Period Frame Gentleman 4" American School
£448.87 Buy It Now 2d 12h
- Elaine Dungill “Fruitful Thoughts” Rare African American Lithograph Oil Painting
£90.95 Buy It Now 21d 13h
- 1972 African American Artist Earl Hill Clown Watercolor on Paper New York City
£803.24 Buy It Now 28d 14h
- Old Master Original Johann Philipp HAID Signed Watercolor Portrait of Cleric
£126.76 Buy It Now 30d 23h
- 2 ELISHA KENT KANE WETHERILL American 1874-1929 woman portraits pastel painting
£82.69 Buy It Now 4d 13h
- Antique Watercolor Painting Newspaper Boy Seller Raphael Ellender (1906-1972)
£458.32 Buy It Now 2d 18h
- ORIGINAL African American Urban Watercolor painting "Reflection 2"
£12.40 Buy It Now 25d 23h
- Allan Morgan - Violet Pathway (12 x 12) (Original Framed) - In Stock
£460.00 Buy It Now 7d 12h
- French Fashion Hand Painted Madame Portrait Miniature Gilt Gallery Frame 11x12”
£59.94 Buy It Now 3d 9h
- Painting Portrait Drawing Signed Emmanuel Fougerat 1869-1958
£82.69 Buy It Now 3d 16h
- Allan Morgan - An Atmospheric Landscape
£425.00 Buy It Now 30d 14h
- Allan Morgan - An Atmospheric Townscape
£385.00 Buy It Now 30d 14h
- Great Man / Pre-1900 / Oil on Canvas Painting: 19”x 24”/ Framed 25”x 29”/Signed
£1,311.18 Buy It Now 3d 23h
- Francis (Ferenc) De Erdelyi DRAWING BLACK AMERICANA AFRICAN AMERICAN PORTRAIT
£1,190.69 Buy It Now 19d 16h
- Self-portrait of a Renaissance Artist - 18th century Oil painting
£748.12 Buy It Now 3d 17h
- Marion C. Parker African American Artist Watercolor Painting Negro Boatman 1936
£1,133.99 Buy It Now 21h 16m
- ANTIQUE AMERICAN BEACH SUNSET Tonalism IMPRESSIONISM SMALL GEM 19TH CENTURY OIL
£850.50 Buy It Now 30d 22h
- Kent Cottrell Painting Black Americana Baby African American Listed Antique 1940
£1,275.74 Buy It Now 19d 17h
- JACK LEVINE (1915–2010) watercolor pencil portrait facing east
£330.74 Buy It Now 2d 0h
- Emil Preuss (German,1866) Come-Hither. Large antique optical illusion oil. Rare!
£707.96 Buy It Now 25d 12h
- ORIGINAL ca 1840s ENGLISH SCHOOL GOUACHE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN SIGNED A. DIXON
£748.12 Buy It Now 2d 18h
- Allan Albert Davidson (1908-1988) Rockport, MA Artist Oil Portrait Painting
£283.50 Buy It Now 29d 7h
