McCormick studied under William Forsyth at the Indianapolis (Indiana) School of Art; at the New York School of Art; and under Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1928 he settled in Leonia, New Jersey, where he shared a studio with Charles S. Chapman
McCormick was a mural painter and wood-engraver. His favorite subject was Indians and he made yearly trips to Indian country for subject material. His mural work include backgrounds for the Hopi, Navajo and Apache habitat installations at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, done in collaboration with the sculptor Mahonri Young; murals for Indian habitat groups at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton; and a series, "Hopi World," done on gesso panels, for the John Herron Institute in Indianapolis. In 1937 McCormick was commissioned under the federal relief programs to do murals for the auditorium of the grammar school in Leonia, taking his subjects from the history of New Jersey. Other commissions included ten panels depicting Indian games for a playhouse for George W. Perkins at Riverdale, New York; and seventeen panels for the library of the Frank Marion home at Stamford, Conn.
McCormick was elected to the Academy in the graphic artist classification. He began working in wood-engraving as early as 1907, with some tools given to him by the artist William G. Watts. His work in this medium appeared in such magazines as Century, Everybody's, Ladies' Home Journal, and Collier's.
Although inclusion of the graphic arts in Academy annual exhibitions was only rarely possible prior to the 1940s, McCormick was represented by his wood-engravings on all such occasions; he also was a lecturer at the Academy school from 1929 to 1933.