Latest news with #BostonAthenaeum
Washington Post
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A plainspoken painting that subtly kicks against stereotypes
Great Works, In Focus • #191 A plainspoken painting that subtly kicks against stereotypes The 'artist-reporter' Allan Rohan Crite's straightforward depictions of ordinary Black city life challenged simplistic assumptions. Expand the image Click to zoom in Column by Sebastian Smee April 24, 2025 at 11:05 a.m. EDT 4 minutes ago 3 min Allan Rohan Crite painted 'Bass Violin Player' in 1941 and gave it, along with dozens of his other artworks, to the Boston Athenaeum 30 years later. It shows a man in a room playing an upright stringed instrument. What's not clear is what kind of music he is playing. In the 1930s and '40s, Crite painted dozens of street scenes showing African Americans going about their daily lives in Boston. His chosen manner did not embrace African-influenced stylization in the manner of other artists connected with the Harlem Renaissance, nor was it about virtuosity or polish. It was concerned primarily with depicting life as it is lived by ordinary African Americans in an urban setting. In this rare image of a musician rehearsing, Crite conveys a sense of movement with brisk, deft brushstrokes. The man's at-the-ready pose, the slightly jaunty shape of his jacket's lapels and the freshness with which he conveys the fabric's creases all suggest a dynamism that feeds into the painting's immediacy. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Is the man playing jazz? I'm going to say probably not. Being an 'artist-reporter,' as Crite saw himself — trying to capture a panorama of life as it's lived by any given group — can get unexpectedly complicated when you press in on the idea. It may mean leaning into all the things your community shares — the kind of food you like to eat, your politics, your musical tastes, maybe your hair or your skin color. But it may also mean wriggling out of other people's lazy descriptions of you. Crite, who will be the subject of two exhibitions this fall, at the Boston Athenaeum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, loved his Boston community. He loved feeling like he and everyone in it belonged to something important, as they surely did. But if Crite's audience was tempted to associate urban Black culture with jazz clubs and nightlife, as depicted by such artists as Archibald Motley and Aaron Douglas, Crite wanted none of it. He was a religious man. (He once produced a book pairing African American spirituals with illustrations in which he cast holy figures as Black people.) His heartfelt ambition was to show his audience the 'real Negro' — as he referred to it — as opposed to the 'Harlem' or 'jazz Negro,' which he saw as a kind of fiction created by White people. His own feelings about jazz, which he associated with debauchery and disorder, seem to have come from his mother, who regarded jazz and the dancing it encouraged as 'almost the drumbeat to the Devil.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Crite's attitude chimes with criticisms made by the trumpeter and jazz advocate Wynton Marsalis of rap and hip-hop, which he has labeled 'ghetto minstrelsy.' You could say that both Crite (in judging jazz) and Marsalis (in denigrating hip-hop) were missing something important. But we, too, may be missing something vital if we don't admit how complicated it can be, on the one hand, to embrace belonging and, on the other, to think for ourselves, to push back against other people's urges to link who we are with what we like.
Boston Globe
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Author readings around Boston through March 15
MONDAY, MARCH 10 Yung Pueblo (' Kristen Holmes at 7 p.m. at Alissa Wilkinson (' Bradford Winters at 7 p.m. at Gabrielle Korn (' Michelle Bowdler (' TUESDAY, MARCH 11 Sara Levine (' Suzanne Kaufman at 7 p.m. Elissa Altman (' Joanna Rakoff at 7 p.m. at Peter Wolf (' Peter Guralnick at 7 p.m. at Joshua S. Weitz (' Dr. Bill Hanage at 6 p.m. at Russell Shorto (' Andre Dubus (' Paula Whyman (' Laura Zigman at 7 p.m. at Mary Catherine Starr (' Meghan Block at 6:30 p.m. at the Chris Bohjalian (' Khatchig Mouradian at 7 p.m. at Jarrett Lerner (' Elly Swartz (' Alex Thayer (' Jean Stehle , will discuss their books at 7 p.m. at WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 Megan Marshall ('After Lives') is in conversation with Joan Wickersham at 6 p.m. at the Boston Athenaeum. (waitlist only) Katherine Stewart (' Kate Risse at 7 p.m. at Joyce E. Chaplin (' Annette Gordon-Reed at 7 p.m. at Colette A.M. Phillips (' Nicole Galland (' Paddy Swanson at 7 p.m. at THURSDAY, MARCH 13 Torrey Peters (' Greg Delanty , with an introduction by George Kalogeris , will read at 7 p.m. at Cat Bohannon (' Riley Black (' Evan Urquhart at 7 p.m. at Mary Catherine Starr (' Paige Connell at 7 p.m. at Cynthia Weiner (' Laura Zigman at 7 p.m. at FRIDAY, MARCH 14 Moshtari Hilal (' Elisabeth Lauffer at 7 p.m. at Sloane Crosley (' Louisa Thomas at 7 p.m. at SATURDAY, MARCH 15 Sara Levine (' Melissa Stewart and Brian Lies ('
Boston Globe
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Drawing attention to architecture
So how to envision and present a building in that period between imagined and built? In addition, how to make a proposed building seem most attractive — to review panels and clients and the general public, too? That's where Frank M. Costantino, Copley Place, The Architects Collaborative, 1984. Courtesy of Frank M. Costantino Advertisement 'Frank M. Costantino: Visionary Projects' offers more than 70 examples of his architectural drawings and studies, variously executed in watercolor, graphite, and ink. The eminence of the firms that commissioned Costantino — they include Robert A.M. Stern, Architects; Kallman McKimmell & Wood; Cesar Pelli and Associates; The Architects Collaborative; William Rawn & Associates — attests the artist's own eminence. The show runs at the Boston Athenaeum through May 3. Costantino's long been a go-to guy for architectural firms wanting to show how a design will look. The earliest work on display dates to 1984, an aerial perspective of Copley Place. The most recent, from 2022, is of a building currently in construction, the tower going up over South Station. Costantino's work takes place during that architectural stage, which can sometimes last years, where this least immutable of arts, when finished, is at its most mutable, when proposed. His watercolors and sketches provide an appealing reminder — appealing both visually and conceptually — of how provisional a design can be before it's set in (literal) stone, or some other building material. Frank M. Costantino, exterior tree study II, Seiji Ozawa Hall, William Rawn & Associates, 1991. Courtesy of Boston Athenaeum The show has been mounted in honor of the artist having donated more than 200 of his works to the library. The Athenaeum is a suitable repository, since so much of that work relates to well-known Boston sites. Among those in the show are the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, a proposed renovation of the Old State House, a reimagining of the Esplanade (yes, that's a Ferris wheel), 222 Berkeley St., and Seiji Ozawa Hall. Ozawa Hall isn't in Boston, but Tanglewood qualifies as Boston on vacation. As a reminder of how provisional provisional can be, there are Costantino renderings of a project that went unbuilt, a tower at 90 Tremont St. Advertisement Frank M. Constantino, Dartmouth Street Plaza & Lagoon, watercolor study, for Esplanade 2020. J. Shields, 2011. Courtesy of Boston Athenaeum The Athenaeum's Lauren Graves has curated the show with impressive alertness to visitors. In addition to a glossary of architectural terms being displayed, magnifying glasses are available for those wishing to attend closely to small details. The art repays such attention. Constantine Manos, "The first snow of winter, Public Garden," c. 1976. © Constantine Manos/collection Boston Athenaeum Around the corner from the Costantino show are two display cases containing a total of 22 items. Those items, which include photographs, prints, a pair of statuettes, and, mostly, books, make up 'Best in Show: Dogs in the Collection at the Boston Athenaeum.' Sometimes the canine presence is hard to miss. Note the two dogs frolicking in the foreground of the late Constantine Manos's photograph 'The first snow of winter, Public Garden.' Sometimes it's easy to miss, but that makes dog discovery all the more delightful. Look closely at the photograph of the fighting men of Company H, First Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, from the Civil War. They're not all men: 103 of them are, but there's an additional face captured by the camera. It belongs to a dog named Egypt. It would appear that paws, as well as feet, were Advertisement FRANK M. COSTANTINO: VISIONARY PROJECTS BEST IN SHOW: Dogs in the Collection at the Boston Athenaeum At Boston Athenaeum, 10½ Beacon St., through May 3 and April 26, respectively. 617-227-0270, Mark Feeney can be reached at
