Lloyd G. McNeill

Often referred to as a “Renaissance man,” Lloyd G. McNeill is a flutist, composer, poet, teacher, and artist whose paintings and drawings have been exhibited in the Smithsonian’s National Collection of Fine Arts, the Phillips Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Studio Museum in Harlem, and New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1935, McNeill earned his bachelor of arts degree in art and zoology from Morehouse College and a master of fine arts degree in painting and printing from Howard University. McNeill also studied lithography in Paris, animation and sound recording at New York University, and calligraphy at the Kampo Cultural Center in New York.

A lifelong educator, McNeill taught at Howard University, Spelman College, and Dartmouth College before teaching for 32 years at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, where his areas of expertise ranged from drawing and painting to Afro-American music history and flute technique.  Since 1992 he has been a lecturer and advisor to students at the Gallatin School of New York University.

Performing extensively with jazz groups nationally and internationally, McNeill’s discography includes music recorded by The Lloyd McNeill Quartets and Quintets and albums and film productions on which he has performed as a flutist. This gifted and creative artist and musician has also published two volumes of poetry: “Black Line, A Collection of Poems, Drawings and Photographs,” in 1983 and more recently “After the Rain, A Collection of New Poems.”

McNeill lives in New York City. The 2009 Kwanzaa stamp is his first project for the U.S. Postal Service.