Edward Dickson Reeder, artist, was born on February 6, 1912, in Fort Worth, the first child of Dean W. and Edwina (Dickson) Reeder. He began to study drawing and painting with Sallie Blythe Mummert and Sallie Gillespie while still in elementary school. After graduating from Central (later Paschal) High School in Fort Worth in 1930, he left for two years of study at the Art Students League in New York City, where he attended the classes of portraitist Ivan Olinsky, among others.

Reeder returned to Fort Worth for a year and in 1933 traveled to Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, where he studied with the portrait painter Wayman Adams. In the mid-1930s Reeder traveled and worked in Ireland, London, and Paris. During this period he began to exhibi...