Three Spirituals; From Earth to Heaven
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1948. First edition. Quarto (11 1/4 inches tall), original teal cloth, spine and front board stamped in black, original dust jacket. A nearly fine book, modest edge-wear to unclipped original jacket. Item #1617
"DEDICATED TO MY RACIAL ANCESTORS, WHO THROUGH THEIR SUFFERING HAVE LEFT US SO VALUABLE A RELIGIOUS HERITAGE"
First edition of Allan Rohan Crite’s soaring illustrations of a Trilogy of great American Negro Spirituals—"the masterpiece among his religious works." Dedicated "to my racial ancestors, who through their suffering have left us so valuable a religious heritage." Complete with the scarce original illustrated dust jacket. Laid-in with a separately printed profile: "Allan Rohan Crite, Churchman and Artist" (in The Church Militant) in which Crite is photographed holding a drawing from Three Spirituals. Uncommon.
Born in New Jersey, Allan Rohan Crite arrived in Boston as a young man to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and he never left. Living in Roxbury and working as a draftsman at the Boston Naval Yard, Crite saw himself as an "Artist-Reporter" documenting the everyday rhythms of African-American life in Boston. A devout Anglo-Catholic, Crite's work became steadily more religious in the late 1930's, bringing a unique artistic perspective—Urban, New England, Catholic—to the modern Black experience. His three books—Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? (1944), All Glory (1947), and Three Spirituals from Earth to Heaven (1948)—were all published in Boston and made him nationally known for a distinctly Catholic iconography featuring Altars, Candles, Incense, Vestments, Angels, Saints, and Madonnas.
The Spirituals in this trilogy (Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and Heaven) are illustrated in a large format, captioned, and signed in the plate. "Crite's pen-and-brush drawings for Three Spirituals are probably the masterpieces among his religious works. From both an iconographical and technical point of view, the fresh and original treatment of each verse of the popular hymns was splendidly conceived. Crite's masterly handling of the brush-and-ink medium in which each line serves an expressive purpose reveals the talents of an artist with few peers among his generation" (Regenia A. Perry). Crite's explanatory Apologia (dated, "Boston, Massachusetts / February, 1948") links these Spirituals to the liturgical traditions of the Church: "Altars, vestments, and portions of the ceremonial used in the performance of the Sacred Liturgy...form a vocabulary of worship in the universal language of faith." Perry. Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art (in Association with Pomegranate Art Books).
Price: $350.00