American painter and graphic artist. Receiving her training from the miniaturist Laura Hill (1859-1952), she first made a name for herself aged just 18 with her book illustrations. The English magazine Punch commissioned numerous caricatures from her. In 1895 she made her breakthrough as a poster artist.
Reed worked almost exclusively for the publishers Lamson, Wolfe & Company in Boston and New York.
The picture shows the cover of The Quest of the Golden Girl by Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947). The lithograph appeared in Les maîtres de l’affiche (The Masters of Poster), a famous collection of contemporary French and international posters of the years 1890-1900, published in a little smaller size for subscribers from December 1895 to November 1900 by Jules Ch�ret, co-working with the printer Chaix. Every month, four posters were printed, altogether 256.
Ethel Reed’s lithograph was published in Les maîtres de l’affiche, Volume 3, Plate 128.
The picture shows the cover of Albert Morris Bagby’s novel, “Miss Träumerei”. Albert Morris Bagby (1859-1941) was a musician, a patron of music and performance, and a writer. In 1895, he published his first novel, a musical romance entitled Miss Träumerei.
The lithograph also appeared in Les maîtres de l’affiche (The Masters of Poster), a famous collection of contemporary French and international posters of the years 1890-1900, published in a little smaller size for subscribers from December 1895 to November 1900 by Jules Ch�ret, co-working with the printer Chaix. The litograph in Les maîtres de l’affiche was plate 99 in Volume 3.
The print shows a portrait of a woman, half-length, right profile, sitting, reading a newspaper, with flowers in the background. It is possibly a self-portrait by artist Ethel Reed.
Ethel Reed, one of the few woman artists of Art Nouveau to achieve celebrity, produced illustrations based on sensitive portrait studies. She employed the poster-like style of her design in numerous book illustrations and posters.
