Charles McGee at the opening of an exhibition in 2011 at the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum in Grand Rapids
Charles McGee, a pillar of Detroit’s artistic community, whose work can be seen on murals and museums across the city, died at his home at age 96.
Born in 1924 in Clemson, South Carolina, McGee was raised by his grandparents on a sharecropper farm. “I started out as a farmer,” he told the Detroit Metro Times in 2017. “I realized how snakes move. And how long the days would be, but very exciting … You just stood there looking at a cow and that’s it. ”At age 10, McGee was sent to live with his family in Detroit. Although he was illiterate at the time and had never attended school, he was placed in fourth grade and forced to adjust to city life quickly. At 16, he worked in factories and soon after enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in Japan during World War II. When he returned to Detroit, he studied art at the GI Bill at the Society of Arts and Crafts (now College for Creative Studies), where his works tended to focus on figurative drawings of black urban life
He soon became a figure on the city’s artistic scene. In 1969, he organized Seven Black Artists, the first all-black group show at the Detroit Artists Market. In the same year, he also founded Gallery 7, a cooperative artistic space in the city, as well as the Charles McGee School of Art, a completely voluntary program for children, which remained open until 1974. In 1979, he co-founded Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, a community-based, non-profit art space. “Charles McGee left a tremendous legacy for all of Detroit’s inhabitants,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, in a statement. “I can’t think of any other artist who has made such a profound impact on the daily lives of people in our community”
A view of Charles McGee’s installation: Still Searching at the Library Street Collective in Detroit
In the late 1960s and 1970s, McGee’s work became more abstract, and figuration paved the way for more pictorial investigations of form, color and texture. Often citing Jean Dubuffet as a major influence, the figures occasionally returned to their work, as in their 4.5 meter wide mixed media play. Ark of Noah (1984) on permanent display at the Detroit Institute of Arts – but they would maintain formal elements consistent with their abstractions.
In 2017, the Detroit Library Street Collective hosted Charles McGee: still researching, a retrospective of the 92-year-old artist’s seven-decade career. “Charles McGee will be sorely missed by the countless people who met him,” said Anthony Curis, the co-founder of the Library Street Collective. “We are fortunate that his spirit will live through the work of his prolific career that spanned more than 70 years – including assemblies, sculptures and iconic Detroit public art. I am grateful to have met Charles through our work together and as a friend. ”Another Detroit artist, McArthur Binion, who included McGee’s work in a 2019 group show that he also curated at the Library Street Collective, says:“ Charles McGee was the first artist I met when I was 11 in Detroit. We have been close friends all my life. “
Despite suffering a stroke in 2011 that limited his movements, he continued to make art for a lifetime, focusing on smaller projects he could do himself and working with assistants and fellow artists when a project grew beyond his physical capabilities. . “In that last moment of my life, I will be very happy because I feel that nature has given me a kiss of beauty that no one can take from me,” McGee said. Detroit Free Press in 2008. “It’s nice to be able to share this with those who want to enter this arena.”