“All my work is designed—I’m telling a story. As a matter of fact, the old African tradition— what they call a griot: storyteller. That’s what I've been doing all of my life in all my drawings. I'm a storyteller.” —Allan Rohan Crite, 1977 (oral history interview, Archives of American Art)

Allan Rohan Crite (1910–2007) tirelessly recorded the people and places of Boston in his art and writing. A resident of the South End, Crite dedicated much of his career to documenting the Black community there and in nearby Roxbury. Alongside his representations of everyday life in the city, Crite also incorporated religious themes, blurring the boundaries between the secular and the sacred. Get a sweeping overview of Crite’s long career and his legacy as a storyteller and knowledge keeper, with an emphasis on his early Neighborhood series and his embrace of the printing press during the mid-20th century.

Christina Michelon, Pamela and Peter Voss Curator of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Denise Patmon, Department Chair, Leadership in Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston 

Course Packages

Purchase a ticket package for the full four-session “Witnessing Humanity: John Wilson and Black Art in Boston” course. Please note that this option is not available after the date of the first session.