Ethel Reed

Ethel Reed was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on March 13, 1874, daughter of Edgar Eugene Reed. Her family moved to Boston in 1890. She studied briefly at the Cowles Art School in Boston in 1893, and began to receive public notice for her illustrations in 1894. In the mid-1890s she was engaged to fellow artist Philip Leslie Hale, but the engagement was broken off. She made a journey to Europe in 1896, and traveled for the next two years in France, England, Ireland, and Germany. Her circumstances after 1898 are difficult to trace, and certain records of her date of death have yet to surface.

In her short career, Ethel Reed achieved recognition one of the pre-eminent book and poster artists of her period. She was acquainted with many important literary and artistic figures of her day, such as the writer Richard le Gallienne, the architects Bertram Goodhue and Ralph Adams Cram, and the photographer Fred Holland Day. Ethel Reed was the model for Day's photographs "Chloe" and "The Gainsborough Hat." She also modeled at least three times for portraits by Frances Benjamin Johnston.