Earl H. (Earl Howell) Reed

Born in Geneva, Illinois, in 1863, Earl H. Reed was an American printmaker, photographer, and writer who became closely associated with the landscape of the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Museums including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art list him under the name Earl Howell Reed and preserve examples of his work.

Reed did not begin as a full-time artist. Biographical sources describe earlier work as a reporter and then about twenty years as a grain broker in Chicago before he retired in 1910 to focus on art and writing. He became especially known for etchings and books inspired by the Indiana Dunes, a landscape he explored deeply and returned to again and again.

His dune scenes helped bring wider attention to that region, and later accounts connect him with early efforts to preserve it. Along with his prints, he wrote and illustrated books on regional subjects and on the art of etching, leaving behind the portrait of an artist who cared as much about recording a place as he did about interpreting it.