From the beginning of his career as a free-lance illustrator, Reginald Marsh chose to depict life in New York City.  From upscale events like the opera to aspects of middle class life like riding the El and going to the theater, to the homeless vagrants of the Bowery, Marsh painted them all.  Like ordinary New Yorkers, Marsh went to Coney Island to escape the summer heat and painted people on the beach, at the circus and in the amusement parks.  Etchings, like Merry Go Round, and numerous paintings are the result.

The son of two artists, Marsh was born in Paris.  His family returned to the United States in 1900 and settled in a suburb of New York City, where he attended various art classes from 1919 through 1922.  Kenneth Hayes Miller, who taught him etching, became a major influence.  Given his early training in drawing, Marsh preferred line to color and regarded drawing and printmaking as a pure art form.  Much of his best work is to be found in his etchings.