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As early as the age of five, Ray McCarty began demonstrating his artistic talent. Raised in the mountains of northern Utah, his first paintings were sketches of the American West inspired in part by his outlaw ancestry, The McCarty Gang, partners in crime with Butch Cassidy. As a young man, McCarty studied the great masters in Spain and France and his work began to show the distinct influence of Modigliani, Renoir, and LeTrec. Women in Victorian settings began to take precedence over the cowboys and Native Americans of his earlier western paintings. McCarty’s work is renowned for his dramatic use of line and color, along with foreshortening techniques in figure drawing. He paints with an oil glaze, which allows his charcoal underdrawing to show though. McCarty used live models in all of his portraits. His canvasses capture emotion in all of the many human palettes: proud and naughty, sensual and sexually confident, shy and humble, reflective and contemplative. 

During the early 70’s, McCarty relocated to Las Vegas. Acutely aware of the city’s renegade past and fascinated with its brash, glitzy attitude McCarty began to paint scenes from the town’s early gambling saloons. In each vignette you can feel the excitement of the game as McCarty captures the essence of femininity in interplay with the strong masculine faces of the old western lifestyle. Ray Mccarty’s work is collected worldwide in fine restaurants, cigar rooms, hotel foyers, lounges, and private homes. Notably, art connoisseur Steve Wynn, well known for the development of fabulous themed gaming resorts in Las Vegas owns a large selection of McCarty originals.