Smokehounds

1934

Reginald Marsh

Painter, American, born France, 1898 - 1954

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Reginald Marsh’s Smokehounds depicts a squalid evening scene in the Bowery, a lower Manhattan neighborhood that was home to many of the city’s poorest residents in the early 20th century. Two men struggle to support their fallen companion in the middle of a busy sidewalk beneath the Third Avenue elevated train tracks. The prostrate man and his cohorts are in various stages of intoxication caused by drinking cheap alcohol popularly called “smoke,” making them the “smokehounds” of the painting’s title. Whether the central figure’s compatriots will lead him to the All Night Mission, founded in 1911 to provide safe overnight haven and spiritual salvation to Bowery transients, or the nearby Lighthouse Bar and Grill is unknown. As such, Marsh’s painting appears to raise critical questions about the efficacy of the missions.

Reginald Marsh was drawn to New York City’s spectacles: the bawdy titillation of burlesque halls, the sensual exhibitionism of Coney Island’s beaches, the gaudy glitz of Manhattan’s entertainment districts, and the motley crowds on the subway. The artist also loved to draw and paint the city’s drunk, destitute, and downtrodden characters, such as those he portrayed in Smokehounds. Rich in the documentary detail to which he dedicated himself throughout his career, the painting also reveals Marsh’s reverence for the techniques of the old masters. Marsh achieved the appropriately muted and mottled appearance of the dingy, nocturnal scene—lit obliquely by flickering artificial illumination from shop windows and incandescent signage—by using egg tempera, emulating the old masters he so admired.

On View

East Building Ground Level, Gallery 106-B

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    egg tempera on hardboard

  • Credit Line

    Corcoran Collection (Gift of Felicia Meyer Marsh)

  • Dimensions

    overall: 90.81 × 75.41 cm (35 3/4 × 29 11/16 in.)
    framed: 113.03 × 97.79 × 6.99 cm (44 1/2 × 38 1/2 × 2 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    2014.136.78

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Smokehounds, 1934

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist [1898-1954]; by inheritance 1954 to the artist's second wife and widow, Felicia Meyer Marsh [1912-1978]; gift 1958 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1936

  • First Annual Exhibition of the Work of Yale Professional Artists, Yale Club of New York, 17 March-13 April 1936, no. 3.

1963

  • American Traditionalists of the 20th Century, Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, Georgia, 1963, no. 99.

  • Progress of an American Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963, unpublished checklist

1966

  • Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, unpublished checklist.

1976

  • Corcoran [The American Genius], Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, no checklist.

1980

  • La Pintura de los Estados Unidos de Museos de la Ciudad de Washington, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, 1980-1981, no. 56, as Borrochines.

1981

  • Of Time and Place: American Figurative Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Cincinnati Art Museum; San Diego Museum of Art; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga; Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; Des Moines Art Center; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1981-1983, no.48.

2004

  • Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, unpublished checklist.

2005

  • Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no.90.

2008

  • The American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2009

  • American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

2013

  • American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013-28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1936

  • Brewer, Ann. "The Art of University Men: Painting and Sculpture at the Yale Club." Art News 34, no. 26 (28 March 1936): 7.

1959

  • The Corcoran Gallery of Art Bulletin. 10, no. 3 (June 1959): 7 repro.

1972

  • Goodrich, Lloyd. Reginald Marsh. New York, 1972: 74 repro.

1973

  • Phillips, Dorothy W. A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Vol. 2: Painters born from 1850 to 1910. Washington, 1973: 153, 154 repro.

1975

  • Getlein, Frank. "Bill Corcoran's Collection IS America." Art Gallery 18,4 (January 1975): 21.

1976

  • Sasowsky, Norman. The Prints of Reginald Marsh. New York, 1976: no. 197.

1983

  • Brown, Milton W. One Hundred Masterpieces of American Painting from Public Collections in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., 1983: 162, 163, repro.

1986

  • Cohen, Marilyn Ann. "Reginald Marsh: An Interpretation of his Art." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1986: 132 repro.

1999

  • Ursini, James, and Alain Silver. The Noir Style. New York, 1999: 22 repro.

2000

  • Cash, Sarah, with Terrie Sultan. American Treasures of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. New York, 2000: 160, 200 repro.

2003

  • Ellis, James Walter. "The Fourteenth Street School." Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 2003: 133.

2005

  • Higginbotham, Carmenita D. "Saturday Night and the Savoy: Blackness and the Urban Spectacle in the Art of Reginald Marsh." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005: 240, 245, 247, 252, 368, repro.

2011

  • Greenhalgh, Adam. "Reginald Marsh, Smoke Hounds." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 244-245, 282, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: Reginald Marsh 1934

Wikidata ID

Q46634935

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