Reginald Marsh
Tank Car Rail
1929

Name: Tank Car Rail
Brand: Reginald Marsh
Price: 2950 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Tank Car Rail, 1929, etching, signed lower right and numbered 15 lower left margin [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Sasowsky 86, fifth state (of 5). In very good condition, on cream laid paper with margins, 6 x 8 3/4, the sheet 8 1/8 x 11 inches, archival mounting. A fine impression of this rarely seen image. Marsh printed this personally, and worked on the plate extensively after creating areas of foul biting in the first state (foul biting occurs when acid gets through the etching ground and creates tiny holes in the plate, and resulting spots on the print). In his notes he writes that he “scraped, snaked and charcoaled this plate for hours.” He also added many lines in the sky and the smoke. The resulting gritty look, with tiny specks of black and lines of is perfectly appropriate for the subject matter. Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, with their mat and label intact. There are only about 18 impressions known of this print, and about 13 in this state. This was numbered 15 by Marsh; number 12 is in the Library of Congress, numbers 3, 5 and 6 in the New York Public Library Marsh estate collection. In Thomas Craven’s Treasury of American Prints (1939), Marsh is quoted as saying in response to a question about the size of his editions: “Since I do practically all my own printing, I do not limit the edition. The buyer limits the edition – he rarely buys, I rarely print. I usually print fifteen or twenty and sell one or two in the next five years – so why limit the edition?” (That was in 1939; today of course Marsh’s etchings are treasured as icons of American printmaking in the ’20’s and 30’s.)

Creator:

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954, American)

Creation Year:

1929

Medium:

Etching

Movement & Style:

American Realist

Period:

1920-1929

Condition:

Gallery Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU51531536833

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Reginald Marsh

Reginald Marsh was born in Paris, France, in 1898. His family returned to the U.S. in 1900, settling in New Jersey. The Marsh family moved to New Rochelle, New York, in 1914, where Reginald attended the Riverview Military Academy until 1915. Marsh spent his senior year at the Lawrenceville School where he drew for the school's annual. Marsh then attended Yale School of Art in 1916–20 where he became the star illustrator for The Yale Record and, later, its art editor. In his newspaper work Marsh exhibited a graphic skill and a gift for pictorial humor.

On graduating from Yale in 1920, Marsh moved to New York City where he supported himself as a freelance illustrator for newspapers and magazines, such as Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar. In 1922, Marsh became a staff artist for The Daily News, first drawing city life and then a column of vaudeville illustrations. When The New Yorker began in 1925, Marsh became a staff member, contributing through 1931. These illustration jobs provided Marsh with a good income and a great amount of free time, which allowed him to study painting at the Art Students League on and off through the 1920s with Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan and George Luks. When Marsh began to paint in earnest in 1923, he joined the Whitney Studio Club, where he had one-man exhibitions in 1924 and 1928.

In the early 1920s Marsh made his first trip to Coney Island on a project for Vanity Fair. He was instantly drawn to the raucous environment of extremes, capturing the boardwalks, beaches and sideshows in his sketchbooks. Marsh often remained in New York for the summer to spend time at Coney Island. The rest of the year Marsh painted industrial subjects. He also enjoyed recording the physical and social life of a newly commercialized city, focusing on taxi-dance halls, burlesque, Coney Island, subways and the Bowery.

In 1929 Marsh took a studio near Union Square in New York where he remained for most of his life, roaming the streets with his sketchbook. The same sketches he worked up for his newspaper and magazine illustrations found their way into his paintings.

The 1930s and 1940s were very successful for Marsh. He exhibited in most of the annual exhibitions of contemporary American art at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1924–54), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1932–57), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1932–52), the Art Institute of Chicago (1928–49) and the National Academy of Design (1927–49). He also had many one-man exhibitions at the Frank K. Rehn Galleries in New York.

Marsh began teaching at the Art Students League in 1935 where he soon became one of the most popular teachers. In the spring of 1954, Marsh was chosen to receive the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an extremely high award in the American cultural world.

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