Pete McKee is a painter and commercial artist from Sheffield, England. He is a cartoonist for the Sheffield Telegraphs sports section. He has exhibited regularly around the North of England. Using bright colours his characters inhabit a world of working men's clubs, bingo halls and family trips to the seaside. Football is also heavily featured in his work although he regularly depicts fans from both halves of the footballing divide in Sheffield: Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, the team he himself supports.
Biography
Peter Robert McKee was born on 1 February 1966 in Sheffield to steelworker Frank McKee and Marjorie McKee and grew up on a council estate in the Jordanthorpe area of the city with two older brothers and one elder sister. His mother died of cancer when he was eight years old. Educated at Rowlinson Comprehensive School McKee's ambition was to go to art college however he ended up working in a factory. McKee instead was able to find a creative outlet through music as well as designing logos and similar pieces of art although at the time his main focus was to try to find a record producer. McKee started sending drawings to a Sheffield Wednesday fanzine for which they offered him £50. Encouraged by this McKee started drawing for the Sheffield Telegraph and continues to do so. McKee decided to concentrate on his painting in 2004 and began by painting with emulsion on MDF boards. McKee opened his first London show, entitled ‘Lost Weekends’ in 2007 and has also exhibited in Birmingham and New York City since then. Subsequently, he was commissioned by Acme Studios to interpret characters from US TV shows The Simpsons, Family Guy and Futurama. In 2007 McKee was commissioned by Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher to paint him as part of Gibson Guitar’s “Guitar Town” show. McKee painted a portrait of the guitarist onto a 10-foot fibreglass guitar which was displayed as part of the open air exhibition on London’s South Bank. In 2009 he created artwork for the Arctic Monkeys boxed set At the Apollo. In early 2010 McKee was invited to design a limited edition pair of ClarksDesert Boots, using the original style template. To celebrate the heritage of the original boot he created images featuring a group of Mods, for the men’s boot, and Modettes for the women's. The boots were sold in selected Clarks stores, specifically in Paris, New York and Japan. Later in 2010 McKee collaborated with fashion designerSir Paul Smith, staging an exhibition of his work at Smith's Tokyo store. This saw the development of Teenage Kicks – a limited edition book celebrating the influence of music on youth fashion. Selected images were reproduced on Paul Smith clothing and bags specifically for the Japanese market. In June 2010 McKee opened a dedicated art gallery "A Month of Sundays" on Sharrow Vale Road in Hunters Bar, Sheffield. 2012 saw McKee being invited to take part in a special project from Warp Films, celebrating its tenth birthday. Pete was asked to re-create ten posters from ten of their iconic films, including Dead Man's Shoes, Submarine and This is England. More recently, he has also painted several murals around Sheffield.
