Cover of A.R.C. Neighborhood Liturgy (Princeton U. Press, 2025) 

The Gardner Museum and the Boston Athenaeum are hosting exhibitions of the work of Allan Rohan Crite, artist and chronicler of life in Boston’s Lower Roxbury and South End neighborhoods. Both shows opened on October 23, 2025.  Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory and Allan Rohan Crite: Griot of Boston are creating a resurgence of interest in the work of Crite (1910-2007), who was known as a civic leader, storyteller, and community activist. Influenced by his lifelong devotion to his faith and to local Episcopal churches he supported and loved, his work is again in our midst.

When we asked The Honorable Byron Rushing about Crite for this post, he encouraged us to learn more about the covers of church bulletins and other artwork he created for St. John and St. James Church, Roxbury. Crite printed his religious drawings in a building next door to the church on Tremont Street, a space which housed his printing press for a time. For more on this aspect of Allan’s legacy, see this page of colorful images, video, and historical notes.

As the Gardner Museum concluded, “Regardless of the medium in which he worked, Crite honored the divine in the everyday, guided by a profound optimism and ‘manifest love of humanity.’”

October 27, 2025 –Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin