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Train

Reginald Marsh

American Art

The urban realist Reginald Marsh depicted modern New York life—burlesque theaters, crowded subways, popular beaches—in a variety of media. Watercolor allowed him to work quickly, a manner that he had developed as a newspaper and magazine illustrator. In this picture, Marsh used both dry and wet washes: note how he blurred the outline of the locomotive by letting wet paints bleed into each other in order to convey the sense of the train’s velocity as it speeds through the landscape.
MEDIUM Transparent and opaque watercolor over graphite on cream, thick, moderately textured wove paper
DATES 1930
DIMENSIONS 13 15/16 x 19 15/16 in. (35.4 x 50.6 cm) Frame: 24 x 30 x 1 1/2 in. (61 x 76.2 x 3.8 cm)
SIGNATURE Signed lower right: "R. MARSH 1930"
INSCRIPTIONS On verso, lower right: stamped in red ink "F. MARSH COLLECTION / CAT." and inscribed in pencil "wc 30-22"
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 79.85.1
CREDIT LINE Gift of the Estate of Felicia Meyer Marsh
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
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