“Art like worship and study should be functional, serve a definite purpose and out of that purpose can come beauty of expression and all other decorative characteristics.”
— Allan Crite, The Artist Craftsman’s Work on the Church, Commentary on the 1950s, Vertical File, Library, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
In memoriam: Allan Rohan Crite, 1910-2007. Lux perpetua. Gloria Deo.
As reported in Episcopal Life Faithworks, November 2007, print edition, page 14.
On View: School’s Out, painting by Allan Rohan Crite. 1936. Oil on canvas. 30.25″ x 36.125″. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
About the Artist: Brought up in Boston, Crite received his art training at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Harvard University Extension School in 1968. He worked for most of his life as an illustrator in the Planning Department of the Boston Naval Shipyards, retiring in 1976, but continued to paint at the same time. Biography courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.