Marjorie Reed 1925-1996
Marjorie Reed was born in illinois and raised in Los Angeles, she gained a reputation for paintings of western scenes, particularly Butterfield Overland Stage coaches and other scenes of cowboys, horses and figures associated with the Overland Mail Route. Sometimes she signed her paintings with men’s names including Harvey Day and Fred Day. At age three, she began art lessons from her father, Walter Stephen Reed, a commercial artist, whom she later assisted in the designing of Christmas cards and with illustrations for the Mickey Mouse Beverage Company, affiliated with Walt Disney. In fact, she was so accomplished that shortly after, she was hired by Walt Disney Studios to do animation. But she did not like the regimentation of that work. Her “Butterfield Stage” series, about the 1858 Butterfield Overland Stage from St. Louis to San Francisco were completed in 1957 after years of travel and research, and a book titled The Colorful Overland Stage was published with twenty of her color reproductions and text by Richard Pourade. In 1967, she finished a second set of Overland Stage illustrations focused on Arizona. A third set was then devoted to New Mexico and Texas and a fourth set to Oklahoma, Arkansas.