James Magee

James Robert Magee (June 3, 1945 – September 14, 2024) was an American visual artist from Fremont, Michigan. Prior to his death, he was based in El Paso, Texas, where he developed most of his artistic career. His main artistic focus was The Hill of James Magee, an art installation located in the Chihuahuan Desert, one hour and twenty minutes outside of El Paso.

Early life Born in Fremont, Michigan on June 3, 1945, In 1971, he obtained a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Mr. Magee spent the immediate two years of his post-college life living in Paris as an assistant to the American sculptor Caroline Lee and her partner, the Serbian sculptor Radivoje Knežević. and assistant to Tommy Koh, the Singapore Ambassador to the United Nations. This last job allowed him to travel to Geneva, where he wrote structural analysis for the UN Law of the Sea Conference. whom various writers have described as his alter ego, a relationship referred to by The New York Times as "a tough act to follow." In fact, James Magee and Annabel Livermore were the same person, even though Magee would refer to Livermore in the third person.

According to Kerry Doyle, director of the Rubin Center at the University of Texas at El Paso, in "Letters to Goya", Ms. Livermore, a retired librarian from the Midwest, "took up painting later in her life to great success and whose work has been exhibited in museums across the United States and collected by both individuals and institutions."

Magee was also a published poet and a noted performer of his poetry, which often serves as "Titles" to specific works of sculpture, including artwork at The Hill. Some of these titles run as long as sixty lines and serve function of both poems and performances. and argues that "Art historians who know it well are a varied and fascinating group, and included (to name only five) the late Walter Hopps, Ruth Fine, Edward Lucie-Smith, Kerry Brougher, and Jonathan Katz. Each of them felt that they had been on a kind of pilgrimage — and, like all faithful pilgrims, each has returned."

Later life and death Magee died from colon and prostate cancer in Fremont, on September 14, 2024, at the age of 79.