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Heart-stopping action, vivid detail and countless figures were hallmarks of Frank McCarthy’s works, but at the end of the day it often came down to the artist’s love of the American West: “Some Western artists document, some do scenery, animals and portraits of Indians,” he writes in The Western Paintings of Frank C. McCarthy. “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 of all, the rock. 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 beholder and never end a situation in a painting, always leaving another hill to climb and stream to cross.”