137:, Detroit (2021); Allie McGhee, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI (2019); and Cosmic Images 2000, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018). In the last decade alone, McGhee’s work was chronicled by major group exhibitions including Harold Neal and Detroit African American Artists, 1945 Through the Black Arts Movement, Wayne State University, Detroit, and Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI (2021); Enunciated Life, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2021); Landlord Colors, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills (2019); Art of the Rebellion: Black Art of the Civil Rights Movement, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (2017); and Ménage a Detroit: Three Generations of Detroit Expressionist Art, 1970-2012, N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit (2012). His work is included in numerous public collections including Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI; St. Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Toyota City Hall, Toyota, JP. McGhee is represented by
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depicts a universal approach to pure abstraction. McGhee's study of the universal plane began as an inclination to document the micro and macro expressions of nature, through recurring symbols such as the line and curve. Which results in a picture plane of marks resembling prehistoric cave paintings
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entitled "Seven Black
Artists," which included Charles McGee himself, Allie, Harold Neal, Lester Johnson, Henri Umbaji King, Robert Murray, James Lee, and Robert J. Stull. The group would later form Gallery 7, a collective and gallery space located on 8232 West McNichols. There Allie McGhee taught
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McGhee’s paintings are lyrical, material-driven works rendered in swirling constellations of industrial paint and found media. Drawing inspiration from
African cosmology, African symbolism, and free jazz, his work explores the inherent tensions between spontaneity and premeditation, intention and
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From an early age, Allie McGhee displayed an adamant interest in art-marking. With his mother’s encouragement, McGhee converted his family’s basement into his first artist studio. McGhee was heavily drawn to the Cubist Art period, and spent his childhood mimicking painters such as George Braque.
22:(born in 1941, in Charleston, West Virginia) is a Detroit-based African American painter and pillar of the Detroit art community since the 1960s. Allie McGhee attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, MI, and completed his undergraduate work at Eastern Michigan University in 1965.
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accident. McGhee’s art practice features painting and sculpture, consisting of collage, drape, and still compositions that enclose the spellbinding visuals of colors merging in a fusion of stains, dashes, and waves. A signature style of McGhee’s includes his
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Concurrent with his art-making process, McGhee developed a daily ritual of playing music whenever he practiced in the studio – an early indication of the artist's potent relationship between art and music.
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called upon Black artists to contribute to the revolution by embodying a progressive, avant-garde, afrocentric visual, linguistic, and sonic aesthetic to help shape postmodern Black culture. Artworks such
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and the influx of experimental jazz music inspired the artist to engage with history, improvisation, and science through abstraction. McGhee grew weary of the limits of figurative painting while the
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Eventually, Allie McGhee became interested in themes related to science, and space exploration. He followed photographic captures from space study taken by the
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Prior to the 1960s, artworks by Allie McGhee were primarily figurative before he transitioned to abstract painting. The
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Mott, Laura and Renee
Aldridge, Taylor (2021) Allie McGhee: Banana Moon Horn. Bloomfields, MI: Cranbrook Art Museum.
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From These Roots: Photographs and
Artifacts from Africa: Paintings by Alma W. Thomas, Charles McGee, Allie McGhee
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Under-recognized throughout much of his career, McGhee’s work was the subject of a major retrospective,
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390:. Battle Creek and Midland, MI: Battle Creek Civic Art Center and Midland Center for the Arts
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N’namdi, Kembra (2005) Allie McGhee, Rhythms: Micro to Macro. G.R. N’namdi
Gallery.
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McGhee comes from the same school of Black abstract painters which includes
362:. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-4587-0
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Seminal Works from the N’namdi
Collection of African American Art
348:. Bloomfields, MI: Cranbrook Art Museum. ISBN 978-1-7333824-2-7
223:"The Deeply Shared Rhythms and Patterns of Paintings and Quilts"
355:. Bloomfields, MI: Cranbrook Art Museum. ISBN 978-0-9891864-9-0
109:, encapsulates a period of radical uproar, while artworks like
369:. Rochester, MI: Oakland University Press. ISBN 978-0925859464
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Allie McGhee: The Ritual of The Mask, Belle Isle
Viewing Room
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Mott, Laura and Renee
Aldridge, Taylor (2021) Allie McGhee:
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Artists reflect on pain and consequences of
Detroit riots
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353:Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality
337:Lombardi, D. Dominick. "Allie McGhee: Parallax,"
45:. His work is included in collections at the
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117:and imagery that recalls the celestial sky.
159:Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI
388:American Black Art: The Known and the New
248:"Hill Gallery -- Allie McGhee: Brief Bio"
192:The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
201:Washington State University, Seattle, WA
171:Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
153:Detroit Council of the Arts, Detroit, MI
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358:Alan Nawrocki, Dennis, et al., (2018)
183:Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD
177:Martin Luther King Center, Detroit, MI
156:Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
440:African-American contemporary artists
374:Allie McGhee, Rhythms: Micro to Macro
189:St Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO
168:Hooven-Dayton Corporation, Dayton, OH
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162:Fondazione Imago Mundi, Treviso, IT
383:. Detroit, MI: Your Heritage House
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186:Mott-Warsh Collections, Flint, MI
204:Your Heritage House, Detroit, MI
165:Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI
174:Koichiro Iwasaki, Kagoshima, JP
150:Barfield Companies, Livonia, MI
69:In 1969, his friend and mentor
455:21st-century American painters
450:20th-century American painters
180:Kohler Corporation, Kohler, WI
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360:Essay'D 3: 30 Detroit Artists
351:Mott, Laura, et al,. (2019),
133:, Harper's, New York (2022);
198:Toyota City Hall, Toyota, JP
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435:African-American painters
47:Detroit Institute of Arts
430:African-American artists
386:Hobbes, J. Kline (1977)
376:. G.R. N’namdi Gallery.
372:N’namdi, Kembra (2005)
55:Studio Museum in Harlem
51:St. Louis Museum of Art
445:American male painters
131:Allie McGhee: Parallax
78:art classes to youth.
73:curated a show at the
302:"Science of pleasure"
75:Detroit Artist Market
425:Artists from Detroit
379:Harris, Bill (1977)
282:www.thedetroiter.com
365:Goody, Dick (2008)
306:Detroit Metro Times
278:"Untitled Document"
99:Black Arts Movement
145:Public collections
121:Exhibition history
95:1967 Detroit Riots
341:, October 5, 2022
339:The Brooklyn Rail
257:. March 18, 2020.
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112:Night Ritual
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105:Black Attack
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39:Jack Whitten
37:, Ed Clark,
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20:Allie McGhee
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415:1941 births
35:Sam Gilliam
409:Categories
311:2020-03-18
287:2020-03-18
233:2020-03-18
209:References
89:Influences
53:, and the
61:Biography
139:Harper’s
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