“Ey up!” shouts Pete McKee as I pick my way through boxes and wires at Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum.

Ahead of McKee’s biggest exhibition to date, the space is still being dressed, drilled and drawn together. I’m here on the day before it opens and it’s safe to say that I’m proper excited, but also fairly terrified. I get nervous before interviewing people I’ve never heard of, let alone a Sheffield icon who is one of the city’s best-loved artists.

Thankfully, McKee is a lovely bloke. From the off, the thing that strikes me is the intensity with which he talks about his art, life and motivation. He shows me round The Boy with a Leg Named Brian, a memoir in five parts which spans his earliest memories, from the loss of his mum to the teenage joy of finding his identity through fashion and music. Exploring the places and events that shaped his life and influenced his art, the displays feature key works that had an impact on him growing up. As we talk, I can see why he feels so strongly about this exhibition. Given the mixture of treasured memories, both his own and those of people who will visit the exhibition, I ask about his approach to nostalgia.

“It’s a dirty word in art, in a sense. It’s not taken as a serious form. You’re supposed to be looking at the future and the present. But I’m a storyteller more than an artist.”

Is the past a foreign country?

For McKee, the past offers an opportunity to play with a narrative, to “mess with it and find the humour in it”. His aim is to entertain, as he explains.

“I want to create a conversation or trigger a memory in you as a viewer about something you’ve experienced in the past. I’m either going to make you really sad or I’m going to make you laugh.” Or a bit of both? “A rueful smile,” he says. He pauses, considering what he’s just said, before settling on the phrase again. “Yes, a rueful smile.” 

Evoking the past is not the same as wishing to be back there, though.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed about, this trip down memory lane. Because I’m not trying to say things were better then. I’m just saying this is what happened…this happened once to me in my past, and it might have happened to you. Do you remember it? I’m not trying to change the world.”

He says some people will simply be entertained at face value by his work and that’s enough, because there’s nothing worse than art not creating a response, than being ignored. “It’s a missed opportunity for everyone.”

But what of the exhibition’s title? McKee says that it comes from a pair of hand-me-down jeans he was given as a child. I wonder what that boy would make of the fact they’re on display in a museum today.

“You had one pair of trousers, and you sewed patches over any bits that wore through, until you grew out of them,” says McKee.

The jeans had a patch on the knee with the original owner’s name, Brian. “Great if your name is Brian,” laughs McKee, but he accepted them because, well, needs must.

“I went down to my mate’s house to play football with him and his big brother took one look at my leg with it on and instantly just said, ‘what’s your other leg called?'”. I laugh, but remember that sense of embarrassment, too. Anyone who had hand-me-downs out of necessity rather than an eco-conscious decision will know that feeling. There it is, my rueful smile. I ask McKee if the chopper mounted on the wall is his childhood bike. It’s not – the one on the wall is pristine, whereas his was covered in stickers from the previous owner. “Like the jeans, there was no hiding the fact it’s secondhand, but I loved it nonetheless.”

Castle Market

For all of the poignancy and pathos that adults will discover in this exhibition, it’s going to be a real hit with kids. The National Videogame Museum has loaned its Space Invaders arcade game, there’s a cartoon workshop corner, and a mechanical horse that echoes a ride from Castle Market which McKee was allowed on “as a treat for behaving myself”. This snapshot of childhood is the subject of a reproduction on the wall, Castle Market. My starstruck seven-year-old tasked me with finding out which painting is McKee’s favourite. Castle Market is the answer, because it was the first painting he did of him and his mum.

“There’s a lot of personal connection to that. But I wanted a career in art and to be seen as a fine artist. It was important that I sold that piece of work, to show that I’m not just here to collect them and put them under my bed.” McKee sold it in 2004 at Sheffield’s Art in the Gardens. “I let it go, even though it was my most precious piece.”  

I entirely identify with McKee’s drive early in his career to be taken seriously as an artist. As an un-agented writer who has a full-time day job, I crave critical acclaim and validation from the industry, even though much of it is deeply problematic. All emerging artists dream of making a living from the thing we love doing. So, it’s inspiring to see someone who has forged their own route, who didn’t have the privilege and connections that dominate the creative industries, to nevertheless reach a point of international renown and local legend.

“I’m not famous,” laughs McKee when I say I was nervous about meeting him. His list of collaborators (Paul Weller, Nile Rogers, Arctic Monkeys, Acme Studios, Noel Gallagher, Sir Paul Smith, Warp Films etc) begs to differ. McKee is a storyteller, yes, but he’s also an artist who cannot be ignored. No missed opportunities here. 

By Amy Stone

Main image: The Boy with a Leg Named Brian – Memoirs by Pete McKee at Weston Park Museum. Photo © Andy Brown 

 

The Boy with a Leg Named Brian: Memoirs by Pete McKee is at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield until November 2, 2025. Pre-booking for the exhibition is recommended. Tickets for the exhibition are free, but donations are welcome. Tickets will be released in fortnightly batches. The latest information on ticket releases will be updated at sheffieldmuseums.org.uk/mckee  

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