$10,000 toward a retrospective exhibition with accompanying catalogue, organized by center director Diane LaBelle and guest scholar Norman Giradot. McCarthy spent his youth in Paris where he immersed himself in the art at the Louvre, before returning to the states to attend Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. His dropping out of school and subsequent nervous breakdown initiated McCarthy’s painting full-time. Inspired by the media and the world around him McCarthy created increasingly abstract impressionistic work he initially presented at art fairs.