Doel Reed, painter, printmaker, and teacher, was born in Logansport, Indiana on May 21, 1894. In 1916, he entered the Art Academy of Cincinnati where he studied with Lewis Henry Meakin, James Hopkins, and H.H. Wessel. The first art school west of the Allegheny Mountains, the school stressed a classical education concentrating on principles of drawing and painting. Among the prominent faculty were Frank Duveneck and Joseph Henry Sharp. The instructors emphasized figure drawing, thus furthering Reed's interest.
Reed served with the United States 47th Infantry during World War 1 and was stationed in France between 1918 and 1919. After the war, Reed returned to the Art Academy where he honed his skills in printmaking. Between 1924 and 1959 Reed taught printmaking and chaired the art department at Oklahoma State University. At retirement, he moved to Talpa, near Taos, New Mexico. Remembered as an important member of the Taos art community after 1960, Doel Reed achieved an international reputation as a landscape artist and printmaker, and as a master of aquatint. His paintings and aquatints were earth-toned and geometric in style and featured architectural forms of the New Mexico landscape.
Doel Reed was elected a full Academician of the National Academy of Design and was also a member of and exhibited with the Allied Artists of America; the Audubon Artists; the Chicago Society of Etchers; the Indiana Print Makers; the Prairie Print Makers; the Printmakers Society of California; and the Society of American Graphic Artists. He exhibited extensively throughout the United States and his work won numerous awards and prizes. In October 1976, Reed was presented The Governor’s Award for Achievement and Excellence in Visual Arts by the Governor of the State of New Mexico.
Reed’s work is represented in the Bibliothèque national de Frances, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Dayton Art Institute; the El Paso Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the National Academy of Design Museum; the New York Public Library Print Department; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Library of Congress.
Doel Reed died on September 30, 1985, in Taos, New Mexico.