Reginald Marsh, American (1898-1954)

An urban realist painter of New York City genre, Reginald Marsh devoted his career to depicting people going about their everyday business including Bowery bums, vulgar party goers, and persons elbowing their way in crowded subways.  He was also a printmaker, completing about 236 etchings*, lithographs*, and engravings*, and devoted much time, especially in the 1930s, to printmaking*. Many of his paintings were done in watercolor and egg tempera*.

He was born in Paris to American-born artist parents, Fred Dana and Alice Randall Marsh.  His family settled in Nutley, New Jersey in 1900 and later in New Rochelle, New York.  After graduating from Yale University, he worked as a free-lance illustrator in New York City for the Daily News and The New Yorker and studied at the Art Students League*.

He was much influenced by urban realists John Sloan, George Luks and Kenneth Hayes Miller.  He went briefly to Europe and then returned to New York to pursue his sympathetic depiction of low-life subjects.  In the 1930s, he did murals for the W.P. A.*, and in 1943, he was elected a full Academician to the National Academy of Design*.

Reginald Marsh died in Dorset, Vermont in 1954.

Source:
Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art