International studio (51.1913/1914)

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INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO
VOL. LI. No. 201 Copyright, 1913, by John Lane Company NOVEMBER. 1913

A FRONT-RANK MAN IN AMERICAN
ETCHING
BY W. H. de B. NELSON
Art critics, art gossips, reporters et hoc genus
omne are all too prone nowadays either to damn
an artist with faint praise, or else to hoist him
to the topmost pinnacle of greatness, in con-
sequence of which we find on all sides men and
women painters, sculptors, etchers or what not,
described as having climbed the ladder of success
to the uppermost rung, where in many cases the
ascent has barely commenced. In spite of the
danger of being accused of too great partiality for
the work of Earl H. Reed, we have no hesitancy
in assigning to him today the highest rank among
living American etchers, to perpetrate a very mild
jeu de mot, Mr. Reed may be designated the Head
of the Line. Claiming Geneva, Ill., as his birth-
place, he became in due time a student of the
Art Institute in Chicago, and later on took up
etching as a pastime and relaxation, but the hobby
horse, when ridden forcefully is apt to convey
the rider into the domain of serious endeavor;
and so it was that Mr. Reed found himself a few
years since devoting himself with all his strength
to this subtle and fascinating art, which is now
his life’s work.
It is only quite recently that this artist’s plates
have been known much outside of Chicago, but last
year a flattering reception was accorded his work
by the Paris Salon, all his plates being accepted.
As usual, rather more was accepted than was
actually hung, but that four plates out of five
were on view is a most flattering comment on his
art. At the commencement of this year the Asso-
ciation of American Etchers held their first annual
exhibition in the galleries of the Salmagundi Club,
New York, attracting crowds of visitors. Among
the exhibits was a Reed group of ten plates, which
attracted very marked attention, four of which
figured in the Paris Salon, viz., Voices of the Dunes,

Among the Sandhills, Marsh Haystacks and Edge of
the Forest.
Of late years there has been a plethora of etch-
ings of reportorial value only—plates of fine tech-
nique in many cases, but just recounting a street,
a bridge, a marketplace, Gothic structures, etc.,
so that printsellers and collectors have been sorely
tried in their task of knowing what to accept and
what to reject. Such motifs have never appealed
much to Mr. Reed, who has preferred, like
Homer’s hero, to be a cannibal of his soul by the
seashore—-in his case the shores of Lake Michigan.
Here he has been able to commune with Nature
at first hand; here he has wrested secrets from her
and gone to her very soul. Here in the mysterious
and lonesome dunes he has discovered himself in
that picturesque quality which he so deftly trans-

Courtesy of the Brown-Robertson Company
OLD APPLE TREES BY EARL H. REED


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