ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (1910 - 2007) The Childhood and Passion of our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Volume of 73 linoleum cuts, printed on Japan paper, mounted on wove paper, with inscribed title pages, and hand bound in antique board covers, 1937-39. Each 292x191 mm; 11 1/2x7 1/2 inches, full margins. Each signed, titled and dated in ink, lower margin. Signed and inscribed with the artist's Boston address in ink, inside flap of the front cover. Each superb, rich impressions of these scarce prints.
With--John the Baptist, woodcut, 1937, clipped and unsigned.
Provenance: the artist, Boston; private collection.
This extraordinary volume includes two major and early series of Allan Rohan Crite's linoleum cuts. It was his personal copy. It represents a great achievement in printmaking by an African-American artist in the first half of the 20th century.
In 1936, Allan Rohan Crite graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. These series were completed over the course of three years while the artist and his family struggled during the Depression. He worked for a year in the Works Projects Administration, and was briefly a member of the Society of Independent Artists, a Boston collective. By 1940, he was hired as a draftsman for the Boston Ship Yard, a job he kept for the next 30 years.
