Ethel Reed

The newspapers called her “the precious lady of the posters”. Ethel Reed (1874 – 1912), of whom the museum conserves a small collection of posters, had a brief but extraordinary career as a graphic artist in Boston and London during the decade of the 1890s.  When she was 21 years old, she achieved international recognition and also became a personage in the media.  She came from a poor family and was basically self-taught - from when she was very young her talent for drawing was already very well perceived.  She suffered from depressions, insomnia and suicidal tendencies.  After the turn of the century she totally disappeared from public and professional life.  She went to live in Ireland with her mother and after two failed relations she died from an overdose.  Nowadays, the posters of Reed can be found in the Metropolitan, the MoMA or the Victoria and Albert, amongst others.

This poster was selected as the image of the campaign of the new presentation of Modern Art of 2014.

* Work exhibited in the room 67, area II.20 of Modern Art.

Folly or Saintliness, Ethel Reed, 1895

Other works of the artist in the online catalogue:Fairy Tales; The White Wampum; The House of the Trees and other Poems; Behind the Arras and Miss Träumerei