Reginald Marsh
1898-1954

Born in Paris to parents who were American artists, Reginald Marsh became an adept illustrator at an early age. His family returned to the United States in 1900. Upon graduating from Yale University, Marsh moved to New York and in 1922 took a job as an illustrator at the New York Daily News. For the paper he provided cartoons of vaudeville and burlesque shows. In 1925 Marsh went to work for a new magazine — The New Yorker — as one of its original cartoonists. That same year he married Betty Burroughs, daughter of the paintings curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later that year they traveled to Europe where Marsh discovered the work of the old masters at the Louvre in Paris. With a sketchbook always on hand, he wandered the streets of Paris and began depicting bums or what he called “figures of failure.” i Upon the couple’s return, Marsh, now with a serious interest in pursuing art, enrolled at the Art Students League where he studied under George Luks, John Sloan, and Kenneth Hayes Miller.