Alfred McMoore: All This Luck in My Head

In September, the Akron Art Museum will open the first solo museum exhibition for artist Alfred McMoore. McMoore (1950–2009) lived and worked his entire life in Akron, creating enormous drawings that depict many of the people he encountered. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, McMoore turned to art as a daily practice of expression and connection. He drew in pencil on scrolls of paper that were five feet high and up to fifty feet long. Because of their monumental size, these works have rarely been displayed publicly.

The Museum owns one of these scrolls, donated in 1995 by Chuck Auerbach, which has never been shown before. Its debut will anchor this exhibition, alongside numerous other rarely seen drawings.

McMoore was close friends with Auerbach—an Akron-based antiques dealer and art collector who supported McMoore’s artistic career—and with Jim Carney, a reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal who wrote a major feature on the artist in 2000. Their sons, Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney, later formed the band The Black Keys.

McMoore’s unique presence in Akron’s cultural landscape inspired the name of the renowned band. Dan Auerbach has shared that McMoore would often leave voicemails saying, “This is Alfred McMoore. Your black key is taking too long”—a phrase believed to signify that something was off-center or not quite right.

Despite facing many challenges, McMoore often expressed profound joy. He would sometimes exclaim, “How did I get all this luck in my head?”—a phrase that captures both the wonder and complexity of his inner world. The exhibition title, All This Luck in My Head, pays tribute to McMoore’s vivid imagination and the creative force that defined his life.

This exhibition is part of the Museum’s contribution to the city of Akron’s Bicentennial celebrations and reaffirms McMoore’s importance as an underrecognized, self-taught artist whose work is deeply rooted in—and inseparable from—the spirit of Akron.