Walt Reed Illustration Archive

A sketched drawing of individuals walking about a city with clothing reflecting a mid-19th century time period. The women all walk about as normal, but the men seem to be wearing horse blinders.

The Walt Reed Illustration Archive is a comprehensive collection that includes over 200,000 magazine tear sheets, 8,000 magazines, 1,200 books, and approximately 150 original works by American illustrators from the late 19th century well into the mid-20th century.

The archive preserves the research library of its eponymous creator, Walt Reed, who authored The Illustrator in America as well as monographs on several leading 20th-century illustrators. As the founder of the Illustration House in New York, Walt Reed handled original works by major and minor figures alike. In the process of his work, Reed built a significant corpus of reference material.

The Walt Reed Illustration Archive on JSTOR

150,000 tear sheets from the Walt Reed Collection were digitized and made publicly available as part of a CLIR Grant, Revealing Visual Culture.

Access these Materials

Search the Walt Reed Illustration on ArchivesSpace

For virtual research appointments, contact the Curator of the Dowd Illustration Research Archive

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Contact

Department
Preservation, Processing, and Exhibitions, Special Collections, Special Collections, Preservation, and Digital Strategies
Name
Andrea Degener
sher/her/hers
Job Title
Curator for the Dowd Illustration Research Archive; Visual Materials Processing Archivist & Supervisor (Interim)
Phone Number
(314) 935-9382