Note 1): As set forth below, Lee “Kogan writes: “Sterling Strauser once said that McCarthy was a “naïve expressionist.”….[According to Strauser] people often found it difficult to believe that “he was a self-taught naïve, because…some of his things look like Emil Nolde….” This painting manifest McCarthy’s expressionist tendencies in as fine a fashion as possible and better than any of the 95 McCarthy paintings that have been offered at auction, per Askart.com, since October 1. 1996. The fluidity of McCarthy’s painting of the bouquet of flowers and the woman’s white blouse is superb, and its other painterly attributes make this painting one of McCarthy’s finest and most eye appealing paintings. It differs significantly from the next lot, another McCarthy painting, for the reasons stated in such lot description.

McCarthy is a prominent American Folk/Naïve/Outsider/Self-Taught painter, who was discovered in 1960 by Lee Strasser, a prominent collector of American Folk painting. Per Askart.com:

Born in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, he produced hundreds of drawings and paintings in asymmetrical composition, exaggerated drawing and unnatural colors. His subjects ranged from American history -- Washington crossing the Delaware-- to abstract to still life and figure. His early life was plagued with sadness that included the death of his father and brother and flunking out of the University of Pennsylvania law school. From 1915 to 1920, he was in a mental institution and began to paint.” Per the Anthony Petullo Collection Of Self-Taught And Outsider Art, at the Milwaukee Museum of Art: “It was at this time that McCarthy began to create art. He would later say, when remembering this period in his life that “I forgot who I was.” In fact, Lee Kogan writes, ”While hospitalized, McCarthy began to draw, often signing his works with names like Prince Dashing or Gaston Deauville.” He only showed his early work to his mother, who continued to be encouraging and supportive.

After leaving the hospital, Justin and his mother returned to Weatherly. Justin, an avid sports fan, played pool and got involved managing a local baseball team. He kept working on his art, exploring a wide variety of materials and subjects. His interest in sports is seen in some of his paintings, and though movie stars and beautiful girls were another favorite subject, Justin’s shyness prevented any real relationships in his personal life.

McCarthy's mother died in 1940, but he continued to live in their home, earning money by selling a variety of produce and even liniment. He tried his hand at a number of jobs: working in a warehouse, at a cement company carrying bags of cement, and as a chocolate mixer. During World War II, he worked at Bethlehem Steel as a machinist’s assistant, but was let go soon after the war. He tried working with oil paints for the first time while working at the plant.

After 1950, his primary medium became oil paints. The old house piled up with paintings, rooms closed off one by one as they became full of work and other items, until Justin was living in two rooms, heated by a kerosene stove, where he slept on a cot. He exhibited his work at outdoor fairs, but sold few, if any, paintings.

It was at one of these outdoor art fairs in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania where Dorothy and Sterling Strauser, both artists and collectors in their own right, saw McCarthy’s work. Describing her first encounter with his paintings in 1962, Dorothy Strauser says, “I noticed first his ancient auto decorated with paintings of tigers, roses, lions, chrysanthemums and then I found his paintings. No display racks, no clothes line, no easels, just the paintings thrown helter skelter on the grass of the courthouse lawn.” Examining them further was a revelation: “I looked and looked and then it occurred to me – if I could see these paintings hanging in a gallery, framed and lighted, I would want to collect them.” Sterling Strauser writes about McCarthy’s work: “It challenges the esthetic backbone of any painting hanging near it.”

The Strausers, who were at the fair showing their own work, became staunch advocates of his painting. McCarthy’s work was later included in major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Folk Art in New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. As time went on, his work became slightly more abstract due to failing eyesight, but he continued on until his death in Weatherly, Pennsylvania in 1977.

McCarthy painted what he saw in the world brought to him through various media. His art is populated with glamorous people, exotic places and animals, and even religious imagery. Even though he spent his whole life in Weatherly, the world came to him through print media and magazines, movies and television. He saw much during his lifetime – two world wars, the explosion of pop culture and media in America, and continuously changing political and fashion environments. He documented all of these themes and more in his distinct manner as he saw them. Tom Armstrong, Former Director of the Whitney Museum of Modern Art states, “He was genuinely involved in the world he created, and his work was inseparable from the fantasy he saw in everyday life.”

As an American self-taught artist, he invites comparisons unusual for the genre, as Nancy Green Karlis Thoman writes: “McCarthy’s intense line, nonnaturalistic color and exaggerated drawing are more characteristic of German Expressionism than of most eighteenth-and nineteenth-century American folk art, which is composed of broad areas of flat color and flat, bold patterns and designs.”

An essay by Lee Kogan which includes excerpts of a telephone interview with Sterling Strauser (conducted by Linda Hartigan, Aug. 10, 1989) puts McCarthy in perspective with other twentieth century painters. Kogan writes: “Sterling Strauser once said that McCarthy was a “naïve expressionist.”

[According to Strauser] people often found it difficult to believe that “he was a self-taught naïve, because…some of his things look like Emil Nolde, some look like Milton Avery – people that he was not aware of at all. They look like Ernst Kirchner. Some of his watercolors look like Demuth. This is all purely accidental.” Strauser added, “He said he was painting for the ages. He didn’t know that his work was quirky. He thought he was painting straight.”

 

Museums that hold McCarthy works include the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York and the Milwaukee Museum of Art, Wisconsin.

 

Note 2) The esthetic appeal of this McCarthy very expressionist study of a woman is far superior to other McCarthy truly naïve/primitive studies of a women that have appeared at auction, per Askart.com. Thus, this McCarthy painting has been assigned a higher presale estimate of $1,500-$2,500 than would be warranted by some of the low prices obtained for such other McCarthy studies of a women that have sold at auction, per Askart.com.