Spoke Gallery is honored to present, All Day – All Night, The Angels Watching Over Me-Select Collaborative Works of Allan Rohan Crite and Susan Thompson. The acclaimed and revered visual artist Allan Rohan Crite, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 97, helped Thompson develop as an artist from the late 70’s until the early 90’s. Her first studio was in his multistory brown-stone home on Columbus Avenue in Boston’s South End neighborhood. He considered himself Thompson’s “launching pad into the world of art.” Crite’s home was also his studio, a gathering place for the African-American artist community, and a warm welcoming place for those wanting to do good in the world. The first floor of his home also housed the offices of Mel King’s Rainbow Coalition Party1. Crite was a deeply spiritual person and the subject matter of many of his artworks reflect this. He was inspired by African American Spirituals, andthe title of this show, according to Thompson, “is taken from one of the African American Spirituals.” The title of the show also underscores how Crite is still inspiring and watching over Thompson.
The works in this exhibit are mostly textile art quilts that are interpretations of drawings that Crite gave to Thompson. The individual works for this show are installed as one large installation and are a small representation of the images that Crite created for Thompson “to make into saleable items like quilts, wall-hangings, posters and cards.” Most of the angels and madonnas works in the show were made by Thompson in 2025, but some were completed in earlier years and the earliest completion date is from the mid 1980’s. The angels and madonnas are all based on Crite’s drawings. Some of the other works included are what Thompson calls “the figure study series” and these “pieces are based on cardboard mannikins with moving parts that Mr. Crite made” to show her body proportions. She uses these mannikins all the time to make prints that are integrated into her art quilts.
She further shares, “At one time we had formed the Crite/Thompson Studios. This was an outgrowth of an exhibition at The Harvard Divinity School and several other venues which focused on his liturgical art. For these exhibitions, I made an altar frontal, a chasuble and stole. The altar frontal showed a Black Christ flanked by two black angels (designed by Dr. Crite). The chasuble and stole were displayed on a mannikin which made for a nice installation that compliments the artworks on the wall…..Dr. Crite thought that we would have a niche market in the liturgical arena if we had items to sell. He proceeded to make drawings of Madonna’s and angels for me to do whatever the occasion called for. The drawings depicted these Holy personages as Black people. The angel series has a band consisting of 6 angels and a choir of 6 angels.”
This is not the first time Spoke Gallery has had the honor to show their work. They were one of the exhibiting artists in Spoke Gallery’s group show entitled, Earth to Heaven (Sept 20th to November 21st 2014) that also featured (in alphabetical order): Basil El Halwagy, Jesseca Ferguson, Claes Gabriel, Katina Spileos Hayward, Robin Shores, Kurt Tong, Dorothea Van Camp, and Ann Wesssmann.
This Spoke Gallery exhibition overlaps with two major Boston exhibitions featuring Crite’s work: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory (October 23 2025-January 19, 2026) and the Boston Athenaeum’s Allan Rohan Crite: Griot of Boston (October 23, 2025-January 24, 2026).