Reginald Marsh

"Reginald Marsh (1898- 1954) was an urban realist whose visual history truly celebrated the American city and it's masses by depicting New York's zesty street life. Both of his parents were artists, and his goal was to become a cartoonist. He graduated from Yale in 1920 and became a freelance artist for the ""Daily News"" and a member of the original staff of the ""New Yorker"" from 1925 to 1931. His assignments to review vaudeville and burlesque theater resulted in a lifelong fascination with these forms of entertainment.
In 1921 he attended the Art Students League in New York, where he was influenced by Kenneth Hayes Miller and George Luks. Miller was also focused on the New York scene, and Luks was a member of the group known as the Ashcan school. Luks was known for his ""lusty paintings"" of life on the streets.
Marsh began the first of his many trips to Europe in 1925 where he studied and drew paintings of the Old Masters. His study and refinement of drawing continued throughout his life. He recorded everything in notebooks, scrapbooks, photographs and sketchbooks. He took classes in anatomy at Cornell Medical School and Columbia University. In 1945 his book,"" Anatomy For Artists,"" was published. It has been said that Marsh was intrigued by the blatant sexuality of the new American society.
Marsh won many prestigious awards and his work was included in the Whitney Museum's Annual and Biennial Exhibitions during his life. He taught at the Art Students League from 1935 on and was appointed head of the Department of Painting at the Moore Institute of Art, Science and Industry in Philadelphia in 1949. In 1954 he was appointed Art Editor of the ""Encyclopedia Britannica."" His work is included in the permanent collections of over 80 museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He died on July 3, 1954 in Dorset, Vermont."