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Justin McCarthy — Biography
| 1892 |
Born |
| 1977 |
Died |
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McCarthy lived most of his life in Weatherly, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania law school, dropping out after having a nervous breakdown.
McCarthy’s family had wealth and had reverses. His older brother and father died within a year of each other. He was institutionalized from 1915 to 1920. He returned home and lived with his mother and sold vegetables they grew on their property. He took menial jobs after his mother died in 1940. Though he had begun to draw while hospitalized, he started painting in the late 1930’s and began to show his work. McCarthy was discovered at an outdoor art market in Strausburg, PA by Dorothy Strauser, wife of Sterling Strauser the artist and seminal collector of self-taught art. McCarthy joined the “Strauser Circle” of Savitsky, Gatto, Pry and Dieter.
McCarthy’s range of subjects was vast, from politics to sports, still life and comic strips, movie stars, historical events, to animals. He painted on anything he could find lying around and experimented with acrylics, oils, watercolors, pencils, crayons, and other materials. His idiosyncratic work varies from uneven to remarkably coherent, and is considered by some to be one of the most important yet enigmatic folk artists of the mid-twentieth century.
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