Urban Realism and the American Scene

Pip and Flip, 1932
Object-Reginald Marsh, Pip and Flip
Reginald Marsh was an important urban-realist painter of Depression-era New York who made vibrant images of the seedier sides of big-city life. Coney Island, New York’s beach refuge for the masses, appealed to Marsh for its energy and eccentricities and for the opportunities it gave him to study the human body in all its variations. Like many of his compositions, Pip and Flip presents a frieze-like throng of people in a compressed space and highlights the voluptuous female form that came to be known as the “Marsh girl.” An excellent draftsman, the artist appreciated the way translucent layers of egg tempera could reveal the linear drawing beneath the color. His attraction to gaudy entertainment is clearly evident here: banners represent the circus sideshow and painted backdrops depict the stars of the midway.
Learn more about this painting on the Terra Foundation website.
Pip and Flip, 1932
Urban Realism and the American Scene

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The Palisades, 1909

Figure in Motion, 1913

Slaves, 1925

Builders of the Desert, 1923

Chicago, 1930

Pip and Flip, 1932

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After Church, 1941

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Bar-b-que, 1942

Clown with Drum, 1942

Sierra Madre at Monterrey, 1943