Reginald Marsh was born in Paris in 1898. His parents were both practicing artists and moved the family to Nutley, New Jersey in 1900. He attended the Art School at Yale University, where he was an illustrator and cartoonist for The Yale Record. Upon his graduation in 1920 he moved to New York with the intention of becoming a freelance illustrator. In 1922 he began work for the New York Daily News in a regular feature on vaudeville and burlesque performances. He was one of the first cartoonists for The New Yorker and contributed work from 1925 to 1944. He also illustrated for the American Marxist journal New Masses from the 1920s to 1940s. Marsh took painting classes from John Sloan at the Arts Student League in 1921, and was soon an avid painter. He traveled back to Paris in 1925 where he met Thomas Hart Benton. Marsh was inspired by the Renaissance and Baroque Masters, as well as Benton’s social realist interests. When he returned to New York, Marsh resumed his training with Kenneth Hayes Miller and George Luks. He also worked with John Stuart Curry and Jacques Maroger, whose research into paint media at the Louvre informed Marsh’s working methods.
Besides his illustrations, Marsh’s earliest works were linocuts, lithographs, and engravings. When he began to paint, he first used watercolor and oil, then in 1929 began to incorporate egg tempera. Inspired by the figurative groups of the Old Masters, Marsh turned his attention to the crowds of New York: the hobos, Coney Island, burlesques, subways, and beaches, anywhere the city’s disparate social classes could be found. He was particularly drawn to the female figure and his work is noted for having strong female characters that often overshadow the men. Marsh used photographs of existing spooks from a Coney Island ride as references for this painting. His original photos are in the collection of the City Museum of New York.