A pillar of the Detroit art community since the 1960s, Allie McGhee (b. 1941, Charleston, WV) received an undergraduate degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1965. 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 Gallery, Ypsilanti, MI (2021); Enunciated Life, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Landlord Colors, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI (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). Most recently, his work has been the subject of solo presentations: Parallax, Harper's, New York (2022); Allie McGhee: Banana Moon Horn, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills (2021); Allie McGhee: The Ritual of The Mask, Belle Isle Viewing Room, Detroit (2021); Allie McGhee, Hill Gallery, Birmingham, MI (2019); and Cosmic Images 2000, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018). His work is included in numerous public collections including National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Detroit Institute of Arts; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint; St. Louis Museum of Art, St. Louis; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Toyota City Hall, Toyota, JP.
