MARSH, Reginald

1943

oil on masonite

17 3/4 x 23 1/2 in.; frame: 25 x 31 3/8 x 1 1/4 in.

Pastime gathers works from the 1920s through the 1940s from the University Art Museums permanent collection. The lush Reginald Marsh sketch, here, is joined by realist prints from the extensive Ken Trevey Collection. During the Depression, government support for artists increased and printmaking, in particular, reached new highs. Artists felt a passionate effort to make a living record of contemporary American experience. (Alfred Kazin, On Native Ground). Like much of the realist art from the period, the images in Pastime describe the pulse of urban lifestreet scenes and subways, dance halls and diners. Despite their Depression-era dates, however, these selected images illustrate scenes of leisure and play. Yet any escapist notions are tempered by the encroaching reality of time and place: clothing, street signs, advertisements insistently place the images in their present.

1943

MARSH, Reginald

United States, 1898 - 1954

Felicia Meyer Marsh Bequest

1979.15