Additional Information
Provenance:
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, NV, 2002
Private collection, Montana
Private collection, Texas
Literature:
The Art of Frank McCarthy, Elmer Kelton, Greenwich Workshop Inc., Trumbull, CT, 1992: p. 122.
One of the great action painters, Frank McCarthy had many unique aspects to his work: his vibrant and dynamic color, the delicate detail in his grass and rocks in foreground and background, and his attention to anatomy, both horse and human. All of these traits are on view in The Hostiles, created in 1976, the year after McCarthy, the former illustrator and movie poster artist, had been voted into the Cowboy Artists of America. “Some Western artists document, some do scenery, animals and portraits of Indians. I paint to achieve visual impact—trying to redesign, if you will, the beauty and character of God’s creation in the West: the mountains, streams, lakes, deserts, and most all, the rock,” McCarthy wrote in 1973. “I put into this setting the characters that roamed it: mountain men, free traders, cavalry, cowboys and Indians, as well as the vehicles that crossed it such as the wagon trains and the stagecoaches. My paintings are based on truth and their settings in reality, but the events are not specific. I guess the illustrator in me likes to leave the story to the beholders and never end a situation in a painting, always leaving another hill to climb and stream across.”