Riders in a Mermaid Tunnel Boat

Riders in a Mermaid Tunnel Boat is one of two drawings Reginald Marsh made showing a young couple seated in a mermaid boat on one of the indoor themed rides at Coney Island, the working-class New York City amusement park. Like the drawing on the opposite side of this large sheet of paper (TF C1982.7b), the image focuses on the voluptuous woman. Her fashionable clinging dress outlines the rounded contours of her body as she sits, one leg thrust out for view from beneath her short skirt, above the flat painted form of an equally buxom mermaid. The woman's face displays a posed indifference even as her date grasps her left hand. He faces a cartoonish head leering at the couple from the upper right, evidently part of the set decoration inside the themed ride.

Marsh drew innumerable subjects from the beaches and amusements of Coney Island. His art revels in the crushing masses of modern social types, of which the flirtatious, sexualized young woman, often dwarfing her male companion, is prominent. Marsh explored the subject of the couple on amusement park rides in a haunted house, a tunnel of love, and an Alice-in-Wonderland themed attraction. In 1946, he painted three such works in full size. This large sheet of drawings is evidently related to those paintings but is not an exact study for any one of them.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 15–October 31, 2007.

Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut (organizer). Venues: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, January 31–May 31, 2015; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California, July 11–October 13, 2015; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, November 20, 2015–March 13, 2016; McNay Art Museum, May 11–September 11, 2016. [exh. cat.]

Christie's New York, New York (Sale 6838, May 25, 1989): lot 364B. Ill. lot 364B, p. 374 (color).

Frank, Robin Jaffee. Coney Island: Visions of An American Dreamland, 1861–2008. (exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art). New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2015. Text pp. 142, 148; ill. pl. 112ab, p.141 (color).