Quote and Credit
The story of how artists Dorothy and Sterling Strauser came upon Justin McCarthy’s naive art strewn on the lawn at an outdoor market in 1960 is told in numerous books and catalogs. Dorothy (or “Dot” as she preferred) saw them first and went to go get Sterling and share them. In July of that year, a brief article in the Pocono Record announced he would be selling “his fashion drawings” at the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania Courthouse Outdoor Art Show. Sterling was exhibiting in the same show (his framed and hanging) but it was Dorothy who soughtJustin’s out. She found a kindly gentleman with his paintings tossed on the ground. She went to get Sterling. He, of course, loved them and recalls how much he would enjoy seeing them in frames. McCarthy worked on any available scrap of paper, but to my knowledge never framed a work. He had plenty of time. By the time this splendid couple came across his work, the artist had filled his then run down mansion with 40 years of art. Sterling, who represented and promoted McCarthy’s art for the rest of both of their lives, remembers being allowed to view the work in the mansion two years later, saying the paintings were stacked all over including in the bathtub and the kitchen stove. This was in 1962 . In her dissertation on Justin McCarthy, Nancy Karlins writes “The Strausers were impressed and wanted to buy one of McCarthy’s paintings but they were priced at one hundred dollars each…and he told them he did not think her would sell many pieces of his work so he might as well charge a lot as a little”. Arrangements were made and Sterling Strauser began making the work available to his art world friends and curators.
NOTES
Original photograph Sterling and Dorothy Strauser on their porch in 1991 by Jim Linderman
Original photograph of the McCarthy mansion 1992 by Jim Linderman
Quote from Justin McCarthy (1891 - 1977) The Making of a 20-Century Self-Taught Painter
By Nancy Green Karlins Thoman. 1986
A work by Dorothy Strauser (“Rumble Seat Ride”” a hooking and Sterling Strauser (“Floral arrangement”) from
Lyzon Gallery postcards no date. The Nashville gallery represented Strauser’s work.
Collection Jim Linderman
https://justinmccarthyart.blogspot.com
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