About the artist
1892–1977, lived and worked in Weatherly, PennsylvaniaJustin McCarthy was born into a wealthy family in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, where his father was a gentleman farmer and sometime publisher. After the death of his father and brother and the loss of the family fortune, he lived with his mother in the family mansion until she too passed away in 1940; he continued solitary existence in the estate, taking menial jobs to support himself. McCarthy attended two years of law school at the University of Pennsylvania, but failed his exams, leading to a nervous breakdown and subsequent hospitalization. It was during his stay in the hospital in the 1920s that McCarthy began drawing and not until some twenty years later that he began using oils. Employing a distinctive acidic palette and a brash technique reminiscent of German Expressionism, he painted anything that interested him: movie stars, high fashion, sporting events, scenes from the Ice Capades, flowers, and vegetables. The works remained largely ignored until the 1960s, when collector Dorothy Strauser discovered McCarthy at an outdoor show in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He soon became associated with the “Strauser Circle,” which included such local self-taught artists as Victor Joseph Gatto, Jack Savitsky, and "Old Ironsides" Pry. His work was first exhibited with these artists in a traveling exhibition, "Seventeen Naive Painters," organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Today, Justin McCarthy's work is included in many museums and galleries across the United States.
Bibliography
Apfelbaum, Ben. “Dorothy and Sterling Strauser: Friends of Folk Art.” The Clarion 12, no. 2-3 (Spring/Summer 1987): 56-57.
Common Ground/Uncommon Vision: The Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art. Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1993.
Driven to Create: The Anthony Petullo Collection of Self-Taught & Outsider Art. Milwaukee Art Museum, 1993.
Epstein, Gene. “What Kind of Art is This? Justin McCarthy and the Age of Outsiderism.” Folk Art 17, no. 4 (Winter 1992/1993): 49-56.
Hartigan, Lynda. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.
Hemphill, Herbert W., Jr., and Julia Weissman. Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1974.
The Intuitive Eye: The Mendelsohn Collection. New York: Ricco/Maresca Gallery, 2000.
Johnson, Jay, and William Ketchum, Jr. American Folk Art of the Twentieth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1983.
Justin McCarthy. Allentown, PA: Allentown Art Museum, 1984.
Karlins, N. F. “Four from Coal Country: Friendships and the Contemporary Folk Artist.” The Clarion 12, no. 2-3 (Spring-Summer 1987): 54-61.
Keeping the Faith: An Exhibition of Religious Folk Art. St. Louis, MO: Center of Contemporary Art, 1999.
Muffled Voices: Folk Artists in Contemporary America. New York: Museum of American Folk Art, 1986.
Prince, Dan. “A Good Likeness: Techniques in Self-Taught Portraiture.” American Art Review (October-November 1994): 90-95, 159.
Russell, Charles, ed. Self-Taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology. New York: Museum of American Folk Art, in association with Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998.
Thoman, Nancy Green Karlins. Justin McCarthy (1891-1977): The Making of a Twentieth Century Self-Taught Painter. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1986. [Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1986]
Unsigned, Unsung . . . Whereabouts Unknown. Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1993.