Nan McCarthy Web site - Who is Nan McCarthy

Education

Studied with Susan Abbott, Byron Carr, Nicole Caulfield, Larry Charles, Jinghua Gao Dalia, Peter Granucci, Martha Munroe, Marylise Reilly-Fajal, Rena-Marie Rockwell, John Rogers, Gary, Ruuska, Koo Schadler, Robert Hayes Seaman, Shannon Stirnweis.

Brooklyn Museum Art School / Life Drawing / 1969-1970
B.A. Wells College / Minor in Studio Art / 1969

Exhibition Highlights

Sulphur Springs Valley 12th & 13th International Miniature and Small Works Art Shows / Willcox, AZ / 2008-2009

Sharon Arts Center Members' Exhibition / Peterborough, NH / 1996-2006, 2008-2009

74th, 75th & 76th Annual International Exhibitions of Fine Arts Miniatures of The Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society of Washington, DC / Bethesda, MD / 2007-2009

American Society of Marine Artists 2008 New England Regional Exhibition / 2008

Cheyenne Artists' Guild 37th and 39th National Juried Art Show and Sale / Cheyenne, WY / 2007, 2009

Juried Members' Exhibition / Sharon Arts Gallery / Peterborough, NH / 2006

ISAP/USA 9th Annual International Exhibition / The Cornell Museum of Art and History / Delray, FL / 2006

Trompe l’Oeil Artists of New England / Peterborough, NH / 2004

Realism 2001 / Merrick, NY / 2001

NAPA Annual Exhibition / Hawarden, Wales / 1999, 2001

London '99, Westminster Gallery / London, England / 1999

Annual Exhibition / National Acrylic Painters' Association / Birmingham, England / 1997

Collections

Work is in private collections in Arizona, California, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and England.

Awards, Honors, and Memberships

Honorable Mention / Sulphur Springs Valley 12th International Miniature and Small Works Art Show / Willcox, AZ / 2008
Member / New Hampshire Made / 2008-present
Member / Hillsborough Area Artisans / 2003 - present
Winner of Dexter Award / 17th Annual North American Miniature Juried Exhibition / Fells Point, MD / 2000
Art Selection Committee for Administrative Office of the Courts Administrative Building / Concord, NH / 1998
Signature Member / International Society of Acrylic Painters (formerly National Acrylic Painters' Association) / 1997-present
Member / American Society of Marine Artists / 1996-present
Member / Sharon Arts Center, Sharon, NH / 1995-present
Scholarship / Brooklyn Museum Art School / 1969-1970.

nan m^ccarthy, creator of impeccably detailed paintings, has loved art since she was able to hold a crayon. Even at an early age, she preferred the skinny crayons, no doubt a precursor to her current use of very teeny paintbrushes. She was fortunate that her parents kept her well supplied with paper and the largest box of crayons available at any given time. Her mother, who came from a family of artists, was her first art teacher. Despite the fact that the elementary school art teacher liked students to "express themselves" with dribbles, scribbles, and blots on paper (this was the Fifties, when abstract art was in favor), nan preferred realistic subjects. She took her first formal training during summer vacation with a local professional watercolor artist while she was in high school. By that time, in order to leave room for a heavy course load of science, math, and languages, art was relegated to whatever time was available after the homework was completed. She attended Wells College and was thrilled to learn that math majors could use Studio Art as their minor. This, in turn, led to nan being awarded a work-study scholarship for one year at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where, to avoid the ubiquitous abstract art, she took life drawing.

Alas, at that point in her life, the need to eat and put a roof over her head forced her to take a day job, something that felt a bit like being sold into slavery. Still, she soldiered on, painting during her spare time, until she became frustrated by the pressure from others (older, wiser, supposedly) to use gobs of paint and paint things that were unidentifiable to anything in the real world (this was the Seventies, when abstract art was STILL in favor). Fortunately, the Muse of Art does not take kindly to being ignored, and in the early Nineties, nan began painting again. She made an agreement with herself that she would paint her way, because she was now older, if not necessarily wiser.

Although she has worked in many mediums over the years, she now works almost exclusively in acrylics. She has made her peace with their quick drying time and loves their versatility. She uses many layers of thin paint on a smooth panel. She works from her own photographs, and favorite subjects include New England scenes and flowers that she grows in her garden. She also accepts commissions for Car Portraits, paintings of classic cars. As a change of pace, she enjoys trompe l'oeil (French for "fool the eye") fine art, which involves painting subjects life-size, oriented flat against the plane of the painting with deep shadows under the edges of the objects in order to create the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface. nan revels in detail, and enjoys doing small and even miniature paintings. She considers "render," "tight," and "it looks like a photograph," to be compliments, while "loosening up" is not one of her goals.

nan retired from her day job at the end of September 2007, the "golden handcuffs" have been removed, and she now devotes her time to art.

nan just recently returned from a trip to Provence this summer.