Lew McCarty, New York Giants 1917
Photographer: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.
Photo Subject: Backup catcher for the New York Giants, Lew McCarty warming up before a game at the Polo Grounds in New York. I found this image in the Library of Congress archive and even though I knew very little about journeyman catcher Lew McCarty, I loved to composition and wanted to paint it.
Fun Fact: In researching the uniform color for the New York Giants, I went to the website “Dressed to the Nines, a History of the Baseball Uniform” and was surprised to see pink and magenta was the main color palette used for Giant uniforms from 1913 through 1917.
I did a little more research and came across an article in Smithsonian Magazine that helped shed light on this color choice. As stated in the Smithsonian article, in Western culture, the practice of assigning pink or red or magenta to an individual gender began in the 1920s or earlier. An article in the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department in June 1918 said:
"The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."
“From then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because being related to red it was the more masculine and decided color, while blue was considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty color, or related to the Virgin Mary. Since the 1940s, the societal norm was inverted; pink became considered appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that has continued into the 21st century.”
Painting Detail: Printed on 13” x 19” canvas and painted using Schmincke Mussini and Marshall’s oil paints. Finer details were made using Prismacolor pencils.
Acknowledgement: Essay on the color pink from Smithsonian Magazine.