An illustrator in the 1970s for publications including Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Time and The New York Times, Alan Magee, now a painter and printmaker, was born in 1947 in Newtown, Pennsylvania. He also illustrated covers for books by Bernard Malamud, Agatha Christie, Yukio Mishima and Graham Greene. Magee studied at Bucks County Community College, the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia College of Art. He lives and works in Maine.

Early in his career as a painter of realistic images, Magee rebelled against the prevalent abstraction to focus on realistic style and academic composition. For subject matter, he favored stones found on New England beaches. In the late 1980s, influenced by the technique and social commentary of Hannah Hoch's 1920 photo-montages, he began producing collaged mono-prints with a socio-political tone. He later returned to painting rocks and other objects in a meticulously representational style.

Of his work, he has said: "I have been fascinated by the forms, surfaces, and textures of the world around me. I feel compelled to make drawings that record these details, in an attempt to preserve the excitement of these discoveries." (Alan Magee, Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics)

The National Academy of Design, and American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, both in New York City, have given awards to Magee.

Magee's work has been discussed in radio interviews, books and television documentaries including Maine Masters: Alan Magee and Alan Magee, Visions of Darkness and Light, produced by Maine PBS station WCBB.

A book, Alan Magee Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics, with essays by Jonathan Weiner, Richard V. West and Barry Lopez, accompanies a traveling exhibition of Magee's work in 2003-2005 at the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock; and Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington.

His work is in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Farnsworth Art Museum, Maine; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe; and the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. Private collections holding Magee's work include those of Diane Sawyer, Mike Nichols, Nicholas Cage, Johnny Carson, Morley Safer, the Bank of Japan, Union Trust Bank, Mobil Oil, Atlantic Richfield Company, and Lucasfilm Incorporated.

Sources include:
http://www.michenerartmuseum.org/exhibits/magee.php
http://www.forumgallery.com/2004/e_magee.htm