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

Evening, Central Park (Marines in Central Park)

Details
Reginald Marsh (1898-1954)
Evening, Central Park (Marines in Central Park)
signed and dated 'Reginald Marsh 1934' (lower right)
tempera on prepared board
30 x 39¾ in. (76.2 x 101 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. 69, illustrated
Exhibited
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Reginald Marsh, September-November 1955, no. 16 (This exhibition also traveled to: Columbus, Ohio, The Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, November-December 1955; Detroit, Michigan, The Detroit Institute of Arts, January-February 1956; St. Louis, Missouri, City Art Museum of St. Louis, March-April 1956; Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, April-May 1956; Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles County Museum, June-July 1956; Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, July-August 1956; San Francisco, California, San Francisco Museum of Art, September-October 1956)

Lot Essay

Reginald Marsh was intrigued with the workings of New York City and practically all his subjects came from observing every aspect of city life. After returning from a trip in Europe, Marsh wrote: "I felt fortunate indeed to be a citizen of New York, the greatest and most magnificent of all cities in a new and vital country whose history had scarcely been recorded in art..."(L. Goodrich, Reginald Marsh, 1972, p. 34)

Although Evening, Central Park was painted during "peace time" in the United States, marines can be seen mixing in the park with many New Yorkers. Joviality and flirtation can be seen among the young marines and park visitors, and Central Park turns into a mysterious place with barely visible couples walking along uncertain paths.

"Through the decade of the 1930s one can see the growth of a more conscious and developed command of design, without loss of his characteristic wealth of material. Forms were more related to one another, and there was more sense of the larger elements and of unifying movements. There was an increased awareness of the picture plane--the pictorial space based on the flat surface of the painting, beyond which forms could not project or recede without destroying the plastic unity."(Reginald Marsh, p. 42)

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