MARSH, REGINALD

born March 14, 1898, Paris died July 3, 1954, Bennington, Vt., U.S. U.S. painter and printmaker who was noted for his satirical and realistic depiction of New York City life. After graduation from Yale University (1920) Marsh worked as a freelance artist in New York City and from 1922 to 1925 was on the staff of the New York Daily News, where he produced a daily column of drawings of the vaudeville acts in music halls and nightclubs. Marsh was an original member of the staff of The New Yorker magazine (founded in 1925), for which he drew humorous illustrations and metropolitan scenes. After 1931 he was an occasional contributor to the magazine and to Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar. In 192526 and again in 1928, Marsh studied in Europe. Back in the United States again, in 1929, he began to paint the life around him in New York City. He walked the streets of the city, sketching the neighbourhoods, crowds, girls, subways, elevated trains, and movie and burlesque houses. In particular he was attracted to Coney Island Beach, with its tangled masses of humanity. Another favourite subject was the derelicts of the Bowery. These paintings suggest not so much social protest as a love of life. Among his more important paintings are Why Not Use the L'? (1930; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City), Tattoo and Haircut (1932; Art Institute of Chicago), and Twenty-Cent Movie (1936; Whitney Museum of American Art). Marsh taught at the Art Students League of New York from 1934 until his death and also at the Moore Institute of Art, Science and Industry, in Philadelphia, from 1949.