Frank McCarthy
(American, 1924-2002)
The Signal, 1979
oil on board
signed McCarthy and dated (lower left)
24 x 36 inches
Property from a Private Collection Curated by Janet and Daniel Hidding

Exhibited:
Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, "Gilcrease Rendezvous, 1984", May 5 - July 8, 1984

Frank McCarthy began his career working easel-to-easel with the great illustrators of the form's Golden Age. They labored and brawled through the 1950's and 60's, living the bohemian life in "The Bullpen," a hive of artists in Midtown Manhattan. They lived from assignment to assignment as Madison Avenue "Mad Men" dreamed up campaigns for everything from pulp novels to cigarettes, from brassieres to Buicks. McCarthy illustrated books and magazine stories and painted posters for Hollywood - James Bond films in particular. In 1974, McCarthy left the commercial art world and moved to Arizona, where he would paint distinctive action scenes that seemed to leap from the stories of the Old West.

In The Signal, McCarthy riffs on a theme he would return to time and again throughout his career: the moment before a battle commences, when war parties coordinate an attack by signaling with a blanket or robe. In this painting, McCarthy adds a note of drama, making the signal a full buffalo hide, resplendently waving while the rest of warriors wait just behind the brow of the hill, out of sight. In the foreground and in the distance, McCarthy's trademark buttes, rocks, and dry grasses, in high key and detail, set the stage.

- James D. Balestrieri

Framed dimensions: 34 1/2 x 46 1/2 inches
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