Reginald Marsh (1898-1954)
Reginald Marsh (1898-1954)

Cocktails, Five to Seven

Details
Reginald Marsh (1898-1954)
Cocktails, Five to Seven
signed and dated 'Reginald Marsh 1940' (lower right)
watercolor and pencil on paperboard
27¼ x 40 in. (69.2 x 101.6 cm.)
Provenance
Senator William Benton, Southport, Connecticut.
By descent in the family to the present owner.
Literature
L. Goodrich, Reginald Marsh, New York, 1972, p. 175, illustrated

Lot Essay

Cocktails, Five to Seven reveals Reginald Marsh's ability to suggest pointed social commentary within the context of a finely executed work of art. Marsh painted this watercolor in 1940, during a period when the artist was creating many of his finest works. The painting depicts a frenzied cocktail party in the apartment of a prominent art collector, whose friends and acquaintances, critics, painters and actors pack the apartment.

Marsh has included a wide variety of personalities in the composition. High-society ladies mingle with more bawdy types in risqué outfits. An attractive waitress, who has caught the eye of numerous guests, passes a silver tray filled with cocktails. Above the din created by the party presides a formidable collection of modern paintings by twentieth-century masters such as Picasso, whose work is seen on the right-hand side of the compostion.

The setting and the art-going crowd in Cocktails, Five to Seven are fitting subjects for an artist who was familiar with the high-brow world associated with collectors, critics and artists, and who at the same time enjoyed gently mocking them.

More from Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture

View All
View All