Marjorie Reed
(1915-1996)
"Across the Colorful West -Old Staging Days"
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right: Marjorie Reed; signed again and titled on a label affixed to the stretcher
24" H x 36" W
Other Notes: American artist Marjorie Reed's vivid colors and expressive strokes bring to life some of the most engaging and entertaining images of the real and imagined American West. While Reed depicted scenes of cowboys and ranchers, what sets Reed's work apart is her fascination with the iconic image of the West, the stagecoach.

Born in Illinois in 1915 to a family of artists and art enthusiasts, Reed began dabbling in art at three years old. Reed's father, Walter Stephen Reed, was a commercial artist, and as Reed grew older and trained as an artist under him, she began to take on commercial work as well. The Reed family moved to Los Angeles when Marjorie was 14, and later, like many Southern California artists, she took a job at the Walt Disney Studios. Having done some commercial work for Disney, Reed was taken into the animation department, but left soon after, disliking the regimentation and repetitiveness of animation work.

Reed's artistic direction would change once she began taking art classes at Chouinard Art Institute in the mid-1930s. Under the tutelage of Jack Wilkinson Smith, Reed was encouraged to follow her passion for the outdoors and ranch life. Reed had become passionately enamored with the great outdoors and life of cowboys and ranchers in the Southwest, and though she had been denied work in those fields, she became determined to capture the spirit of the West in her paintings. Some of her friends would even state that Reed would walk eighteen miles a day, exploring the countryside around Los Angeles.

Reed befriended Captain William Banning, who had been a stagecoach driver. Reed was inspired by these tales of the stagecoach, set out in a Model T, retracing the route of the famed Butterfield Overland Mail Stage, and sketching out images for paintings to be completed later. From these sketches, Reed created colorful, exciting images of the Butterfield stagecoaches soaring across the plains of the Southwest.

Reed completed her first series of Butterfield Stage paintings in 1957, with a book, "The Colorful Overland Stage," published the same year. Reed would continue this research cycle, traveling, sketching, and painting, for the rest of her life. Other cycles of stagecoach and Western art would continue through the 1960s and 1970s. Her passion for the images and history of the West would compel her to move over eighty times, spending much of her time in Tombstone, Arizona. Her work became quite popular, collected by luminaries such as James S. Copley, the publisher of the San Diego Union and San Diego Tribune, and numerous private collectors. Marjorie Reed passed away in 1996, leaving behind a voluminous legacy of American art.

Visual: Overall good condition.

Blacklight: No evidence of restoration.

Frame: 32.25" H x 44.25" W x 2.25" D Condition reports are offered as a courtesy and are typically published in Moran's catalogue or can be made available upon request. The absence of a condition report does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of others. Buyers are responsible for determining to their own satisfaction the true nature and condition of any lot prior to bidding. Though buyers are not legally required to inspect lots prior to purchase, failure to do so may constitute a waiver of complaint that an item was not delivered in a condition equal to the existent condition at the auction.