Reginald Marsh's New York: Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Photographs

by Marilyn Cohen

Superior selection of 154 Marsh New York illustrations, including 4 in full color on beach scenes at Coney Island, street scenes, vagrants, burlesque theaters, marathon dancers, subways, breadlines, and much more.

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

Reviews

[Mike Zickar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice essay about Marsh's work. Nearly all of the reproductions of his work are in B&W which doesn't do his work justice and so you'll need to search elsewhere to see the full joy in these paintings. Thank you to the internet for making that easy to do.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good introduction to the early 20th Century art of Reginald Marsh. He painted around the same time as the Ash Can School artists like George Bellows, but strangely enough is not considered a part of that movement. Why not? His paintings are very realist, showing burlesque dancers on stage, bums sleeping in subway cars, musclemen showing off in Coney Island, etc.

Marilyn Cohen does a pretty thorough job in presenting Marsh's work to us, meaning the volume includes drawings, sketches, and even some very cool Weegee-style photography by Mr. Marsh (for source material, natch). Unfortunately it's all in black and white, no color plates inside.

If you like pre-code movies or simply realist paintings from the early Twentieth Century I recommend Reginald Marsh on your list of great discoveries. He's worthy of so much more attention.