Artwork in the Library

Peter Vanderwarker

Peter Vanderwarker is an internationally-regarded architectural and editorial photographer. His work appears regularly in Architectural Record and Architectural Digest magazines, among others. His photography work is found in the collections of the Boston Athenaeum, the MIT Museum, and the Boston University Art Gallery. He is also the author/co-author and photographer of several books, and is a columnist for the Boston Sunday Globe's Cityscapes.

Two sets from Mr. Vanderwarker's collections can be found in the library. The first are sets of side-by-side photographs of building and street scenes of Boston's Tremont Street, taken from the same location, separated by about 50 years. The collection is on the fourth floor, on the Tremont Street side. The second includes photographs taken by Mr. Vanderwarker during Boston's "Big Dig" construction project, and can be found on the third floor near the entrance to the Library Commons

Allan Rohan Crite

Allan Rohan Crite (March 20, 1910 - September 6, 2007) was a Boston-based African American artist. Born in Plainfield, NJ and raised 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. His work has been widely exhibited and well received in Boston, where a park is named after him. Crite's early paintings depict the daily life of Boston's African-American community, a community that was to be transformed in the following decade by urban renewal and housing projects. According to the artist, he sought to show viewers the "real Negro" as opposed to the "Harlem" or "jazz Negro," that was created by white people.

In his later paintings, magic-realist visions in which a black Virgin and Child ride on public transportation or float above the city streets, Crite used a bright palette rather than the more somber tones of his "neighborhood paintings." Compared with these earlier paintings, the religious works offer a message of hope and deliverance.

The library has on display his work "Summer Madonna" (1977, 1979), which was presented to the University by the artist.

Howard Chandler Christy

Howard Chandler Christy (January 10, 1872 - March 3, 1952) was an American artist and illustrator, famous for the "Christy Girl" - a colorful and illustrious successor to the "Gibson Girl" - who became the most popular portrait painter of the Jazz Age era. Christy painted such luminaries as Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, and Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, and Truman. Other famous people painted include William Randolph Hearst, the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII), Eddie Rickenbacker, Benito Mussolini, Prince Umberto, and Amelia Earhart. From the 1920s until the early 1950s, Christy was well-known for capturing the likenesses of congressmen, senators, industrialists, movies stars, and socialites.

The library has on display his portrait of Charles Hiller Innes, ca.1920, painted in oil on canvas. Charles Hiller Innes (1870 - 1939) was a lawyer and politician who led the Massachusetts Republican Party during the 1910s and 1920. Innes established the Charles H. Innes Law Association, the first night law school in the United States, training more than nine hundred members of the Massachusetts Bar.

Audrey Goldstein

Audrey Goldstein is an artist who lives and works in the Boston area. Her work has been seen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA. Her performance work was staged at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA and at the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Festival through the D.U.M.B.O. Art Center, Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited in many galleries in Boston and is currently represented by Gallery Kayafas. Goldstein received her BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, and her MFA in sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. She is currently a full professor and Chair of Art & Design at Suffolk University School of Art & Design.

The library has on display her bronze bust of Dean Emeritus Michael R. Ronayne, Jr. (1937 - 2005), the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences from 1972 to 2004, and Professor of Chemistry from 1966 to 1971. First appointed at the age of 34, he was the youngest dean in the history of Suffolk University. He thought of himself as "just a regular kid from the streets of Somerville".

Mary Evangeline Walker

Mary Evangeline Walker (1894 - 1957) was born in New Bedford and died in Arlington, Massachusetts. She trained as an artist at the School of Applied Design for Women in New York City, the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, Columbia University, and the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase. She was known for her portraits of notable people. She maintained a studio at 31 Newberry Street known as the "Studio Group and Art Gallery of Mary Evangeline Walker." She also worked for the WPA in the Federal Art Project, and belonged to the Boston Art Club, the Copley Society, and others. She was described as "one of Boston's top [fine arts] teachers" in the Lowell (MA) Sun [January 8, 1950].

The library has on display one of Ms. Walker's works, an oil portrait of Mildred F. Sawyer (1904? - 2000), located in Reference. The Sawyer Library was named after her in 1982 thanks to a naming gift from her husband, Frank Sawyer, a Boston-area businessman and an important supporter of Suffolk University.

Student-Contributed Pieces

Students from Suffolk University's New England School of Art and Design have loaned the Sawyer Library artwork created for their courses. Examples include the installation in the oculus between the second and third floors in the Granary Reading Rooms.