Reginald
Marsh was born in Paris, France, in 1898. His parents were
both artists who returned to the United States in 1900. He studied
at Yale University before becoming an artist.
Marsh held radical political views and provided drawings for journals
such as The Masses, The
Liberator and The Unemployed
and associated with a group of left-wing artists such as John
Sloan, George Bellows, Rockwell
Kent, Alice Beach Winter, Mary
Ellen Sigsbee, Cornelia Barns, Reginald
Marsh, Art Young, Boardman
Robinson, Robert Minor, K.
R. Chamberlain, Stuart Davis, Edmund
Duffy, Denys Wortman, Daniel
Fitzpatrick and Maurice Becker.
Reginald
Marsh, The Bread Line, The Unemployed
(1932)
In the
1930s he turned to painting and influenced by the ideas of Robert
Henri who argued that the artist's work should be "a social
force that creates a stir in the world". Henri also urged artists
to use the "rich subject-matter provided by modern urban life".
He attempted to depict contemporary life in the manner of the Old
Masters and he mainly worked in tempera. This included several paintings
on New York street life such as The
Boery (1930), Tattoo and Haircut (1932), The Park Bench
(1933) and Negroes on Rockaway Beach (1934). Reginald Marsh
died in 1954.
Reginald
Marsh, The Park Bench (1932)
The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery
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