Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood

Born in North Plainfield and raised in Boston, Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007) created a rich visual record of Black life in 20th-century urban America, revealing a sense of community that resonates across time and place.

The new exhibition offers a sweeping overview of his long career as a storyteller and cultural historian who chronicled the everyday lives of his friends and neighbors.

Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood features 65 paintings and works on paper, exploring themes meaningful to the artist: neighborhood, community and religion.

Over a career that spans eight decades, Crite documented the multicultural, multiracial and multigenerational communities of Boston, as well as historic social and economic changes that transformed the nation in the latter half of the 20th century.

Crite’s vibrant paintings of neighborhood scenes from the 1930s and 1940s are some of his most celebrated works. While many of his contemporaries in New York portrayed Black subjects through two stereotypical extremes—famous entertainers or anonymous figures—Crite chose his middle-class neighbors in Boston. He captured their everyday activities: children learning and playing, mothers and babies meeting in the park, men reading the news on the corner, people commuting and at the office.

A dedicated Episcopalian, Crite often portrayed religious scenes that are common art historical subjects. The exhibition includes a full set of his Stations of the Cross: I-XIV, an important Biblical narrative that encourages Christians to explore the themes of suffering, sacrifice and redemption. Crite also placed Biblical figures in familiar, contemporary settings. His well-known Streetcar Madonna, along with two other images of Madonna and Child navigating the public transit system, inspires viewers to experience spirituality beyond the sacred walls of the church.

From the 1950s onward, Crite experimented with new techniques on paper, continuing to explore the meaning of community—particularly as the physical landscape around him shifted. He documented the detrimental impact of urban renewal—what he called “urban removal”—and the gentrification that displaced long-established Black and multicultural neighborhoods.

Crite lived the community-centered values he depicted. His home was a gathering space for scholars, historians, artists and community leaders. That legacy continues in the current work of Johnetta Tinker and Susan Thompson, who—like their mentor, Crite—capture Black communities grounded in lived experience, rather than stereotypes.

Four quilts from their 2021 series Deeply Rooted in the NeighborHOOD, Homage to Allan Rohan Crite are included in the exhibition.

Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood is complemented by free public programs:

• SparkNight: Centennial Black History Month Celebration and Spotlight on New Spring Exhibitions on February 12
• Choir performance on February 28
• Art Together family workshop on March 15
• Curatorial discussion “Conspicuous by Their Absence” on April 29.

Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood is organized by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Massachusetts.

In addition, the Gardner Museum and Boston Athenaeum have co-published Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood Liturgy, produced by Princeton University Press, the first extensively researched, fully illustrated, career-spanning book about the artist.

The Zimmerli’s presentation is organized by Nicole Simpson, Curator of Prints and Drawings. It is on view from February 11 through July 31.

The Zimmerli Art Museum is open Wednesday and Friday, 11 am to 6 pm; Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 12-5 pm. The museum is closed Monday and Tuesday, as well as major holidays and the month of August.

Admission is free.