Born in Aldershot in 1862, C.H. Mackie attended Edinburgh University as a medical student before studying art at the Scottish Royal Academy School. On leaving school he went to
Kirkcudbright to work before travelling to Brittany were he spent time with the artist Paul Sérusier. Here he was introduced to the works of Gaugin, Vuillard and Le Sidaner. In 1900 he co-founded and was the first President of SSA (Society of Scottish Artists) and, a year later, became a founder member of the Staithes Art Club, whose later members included Harold Knight and Dame Laura Knight).
Mackie was a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours (RSW); elected Chairman of the Scottish Society of Artists; and a full Member of the Royal Scottish Academy (1917.) He died in Edinburgh in 1920.

During his career, Mackie exhibited extensively showing at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, the International Society, the Walker Gallery Liverpool, Manchester’s City Art Gallery, the Royal Hibernian Academy, and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours.