The Mc Neill Burroughs Archive comprises works completed by the artist Malcolm Mc Neill between from 1970 – 1977 in collaboration with the writer William S. Burroughs. Therefore, the Archive consists of original work resulting in The Unspeakable Mr Hart and Ah Puch/Pook is Here. The uncanny initial encounter between Mc Neill and Burroughs (Mc Neill’s imaginary identikit portrait of Hart and its resemblance to Burroughs whom he had not yet seen in photographs or met in person) catalyzed a working relationship surrounded with – and informed by – modes of synchronicity which perpetuated even beyond Burroughs’ death in 1997. Burroughs had said, “I want to meet the guy who knows how to draw me!”1 Their creative relationship is detailed in Mc Neill’s excellent memoir Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me (Fantagraphics, 2012). From The Unspeakable Mr Hart through the unrealized Ah Pook is Here, the physical archive contains more than 100 individual works of art, sketches, designs, narrative storyboarding, original annotated Burroughs typescripts, contracts between Mc Neill and Burroughs, correspondence, and intriguing ephemera. Some works are on delicate 55 year-old butcher paper, others on paper and board. The art is in graphite, ink, and acrylics. The scale of the works ranges from individual narrative panels to the original 25 ft Ah Puch panorama. Including exhibition prints, the Archive was always outside of its time. Understood fully, the Archive is of singular artistic and literary importance. Writer and Mc Neill advocate James Reich became the Archivist in the summer of 2025.
The Mc Neill Burroughs Archive is privately held for preservation and maintenance, at present.
- Mc Neill, M. (2012). Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me. Fantagraphics (p. 18). ↩︎