Helen K. McCarthy was born in Poland, Ohio in 1884. She studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, now the Moore College of Art and Design, with Impressionist Henry B. Snell and landscape painter Elliot Dangerfield. McCarthy is best known as an original member of the Philadelphia Ten (also known as the Ten Philadelphia Painters), a women’s artist group founded by artists trained at the Philadelphia School of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In an era when many women artists sought to de-gender their work in the hope of competing in a male-dominated field, the members of the Philadelphia Ten banded together, exhibiting as a group to gain prominence. McCarthy participated in the group’s annual exhibitions which had a total run of nearly three decades from 1917 to 1945. McCarthy was also a member of Philadelphia’s Plastic Club, founded in 1897, which provided a social and professional network for women artists as well as exhibition opportunities at the club’s gallery on South Camac Street. In 1998, McCarthy’s work was included in the Moore College of Art and Design’s retrospective of the Philadelphia Ten which was accompanied by an exhibition catalogue devoted to the group.