Reginald Marsh was born in Paris, the son of painters Fred Dana Marsh
and Alice Randall Marsh. In 1900 the family returned to America where Marsh
was brought up in an atmosphere of social privilege. During his college
years at Yale he devoted most of his energies to the extracurricular pleasures
of parties, girls, and nightclubs while he worked as illustrator for The
Yale Record.
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After graduation Marsh gravitated naturally to the bustle and excitement
of New York, where he was on the staff of the New York Daily News
from 1922 to 1925. At the same time he continued his studies at the Art
Students' League under the tutelage of John Sloan, George Luks, and Kenneth
Hayes Miller. From the Daily News Marsh moved on to the leading magazines
of the day, contributing to The New Yorker, Esquire, Fortune,
and Life. |
Marsh thrived on the excitement of crowds, and he reveled in observing the
public's pursuit of pleasure. He had a swift, unhesitating skill for capturing
the moment with a realism reminiscent of Rowlandson and Hogarth.
In Grand Tier at the Met Marsh has transferred his attention to a
more upscale milieu, but he is no less forthright in his depiction of the
rich and the famous. Marsh himself was not an opera fan, which perhaps explains
why his several images of the Metropolitan Opera and its patrons, done between
1934 and 1940, are generally unflattering. |
