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.