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Reginald Marsh
Smoke Hounds, 1934
Smoke Hounds depicts a squalid evening scene in the Bowery, a lower Manhattan neighborhood that was home to much of the city's indigent population. The painting's title refers to the Bowery dwellers' intoxication from cheap alcohol, popularly called "smoke." The richly textured surfaces of Marsh's nearly monochromatic canvas both invigorate the composition and imbue the painting with the worn quality of old newspaper that litters gritty urban streets. |