Reginald Marsh

The genre scenes of the American painter and print-maker Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), often showing the seamy side of city life, reflected his acute powers of observation.

Both of Reginald Marsh's parents were painters. His father was one of America's first painters of industrial scenes. Reginald was born in Paris; the Marshes returned to America when he was 2, settling in Nutley, N. J. He attended Yale, then settled in New York in 1920 and began working as a free-lance artist. Eventually he became a staff artist for the Daily News and the New Yorker. He thought of himself as an illustrator, not a painter, until, in 1925, he went abroad for several months and copied paintings by Rubens and Delacroix. Back home, Marsh dabbled in radicalism, contributing to the New Masses during the 1930s.

Marsh worked in a variety of media. His first paintings were watercolors. In 1929 he worked in the egg-yolk medium, getting his lights from the gesso ground. Print-making went along with his painting. In the late 1920s he tried lithography, then changed to etching; in the 1940s he took up copper engraving. During the 1930s he did mural paintings and in 1935 decorated in fresco the Post Office Building in Washington, D. C., and the Custom House in New York City. In the 1940s he used oils frequently. Also during that period he used Chinese ink on paper, sometimes combined with egg tempera.

A part of Marsh's reportage art touches on social commentary. His scenes of the Bowery focus on homeless and beaten people. Tattoo and Haircut (1932) features a hunched cripple. Vagrants huddle in doorways beneath the tracks of the elevated train, against a sign advertising a shave-haircut for 10 cents and 20 cents. The Bowery shows crowds of vagrants standing forlornly beneath rows of hotel signs, their arms crossed or their hands in their pockets.

Marsh was attracted to the noise and movement of New York City. He liked to depict crowds pursuing public pleasures at theaters, burlesque houses, dance halls, and beaches. His figures are imbued with a bawdiness, a sensuousness, and often a sleaziness. His attraction to crowds went with his love of spectacles. In 1937 he defended public burlesque, and when it was banned in New York, he followed it to New Jersey. Among his burlesque subjects is Minsky's Chorus (1935). His beach scenes usually show healthy young people sunning, wrestling, embracing—unabashed in their exuberance, as in Negroes of Rockaway Beach (1934). Anatomical drawing was a lifelong interest. His work also reveals a knowledge of Renaissance compositions.

Further Reading

A catalog of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Reginald Marsh (1955), is informative and well done. It is based on an exhibition of 160 works, about one-third of them illustrated in the catalog. See also Norman Sasowsky, Reginald Marsh: Etchings, Engravings, Lithographs (1956). □

Marsh, Reginald (1898–1954). American painter and illustrator. He was born in Paris to wealthy American parents, both of whom were painters ( Fred Dana Marsh and Alice Marsh), and he was brought to the USA when he was two. After graduating from Yale University in 1920 he studied at the Art Students League, New York, in the early 1920s. Until 1930 he worked mainly as a newspaper illustrator, but he took up painting seriously after a study trip to Paris in 1925–6, and in the 1930s he became well known for his paintings depicting shabby and tawdry aspects of life in New York. His favourite subjects included Coney Island, the amusement arcades of Times Square, and the cheap and grubby street life of the Bowery district (Tattoo and Haircut, Art Institute of Chicago, 1932). He was also capable of bitter satire against the smug complacency of the wealthy, but in general his work shows a love of depicting teeming life through ugly yet colourful subjects rather than a desire for social protest. His aim was to depict contemporary life in the manner of the Old Masters and he worked mainly in tempera (he also experimented with reviving other venerable techniques). To some extent his work expressed a rejection of the affluent and genteel circumstances in which he grew up. He said he would ‘rather paint an old suit of clothes than a new one because an old one has character; reality is exposed not disguised. People of wealth spend money to disguise themselves.’ Marsh's first wife, Betty Burroughs, was a sculptor.

Marsh, Reginald (b Paris, 14 Mar. 1898; d Dorset, Vt., 30 July 1954). American painter. Until 1930 he worked mainly as a newspaper illustrator, but he took up painting seriously after a study trip to Paris in 1925–6, and in the 1930s he became well known for his paintings depicting shabby and tawdry aspects of life in New York. His favourite subjects included Coney Island, the amusement arcades of Times Square, and the cheap and grubby street life of the Bowery district (Tattoo and Haircut, 1932, Art Inst. of Chicago). He was also capable of bitter satire against the smug complacency of the wealthy, but in general his work shows a love of depicting teeming life through ugly yet colourful subjects rather than a desire for social protest. His aim was to represent contemporary subjects in the manner of the Old Masters and he worked mainly in tempera, also experimenting with other venerable techniques. He came from a wealthy family and to some extent his work expressed a rejection of the affluent and genteel circumstances in which he grew up.

Marsh, Reginald (1898–1954). American painter. Until 1930 he worked mainly as a newspaper illustrator, but he took up painting seriously after a study trip to Paris in 1925–6, and in the 1930s he became well known for his paintings depicting shabby and tawdry aspects of life in New York. His favourite subjects included Coney Island, the amusement arcades of Times Square, and the cheap and grubby streetlife of the Bowery district (Tattoo and Haircut, 1932, Art Inst. of Chicago). Although he was capable of bitter satire against the complacency of the wealthy, his work generally shows a love of depicting teeming life through ugly but colourful subjects rather than a desire for social protest. His aim was to represent contemporary subjects in the manner of the Old Masters and he worked mainly in tempera, also experimenting with other venerable techniques. He came from a wealthy family and to some extent his work expressed a rejection of the affluent and genteel circumstances in which he grew up.

Reginald Marsh 1898–1954, American painter and illustrator, b. Paris. Both his parents were artists. After their return to the United States, he studied at Yale (B.A., 1920). He worked as an illustrator for Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Daily News, and later he was a scene designer. He then studied under John Sloan and K. H. Miller at the Art Students League. From 1925 to 1939 he made two trips to Europe and sketched for the New Yorker. His lively recordings of Manhattan street life in many media were popular. Why Not Use the L? (1930; Whitney Mus., New York City) is typical. Marsh painted two celebrated murals in the Post Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Bibliography: See study by L. Goodrich (1972).