JESSE FLOYD REED, age 91 years, a resident of Elkins, WV departed this life Friday July 29, 2011 at the Davis Memorial Hospital at Elkins, WV.
He was born Sunday, July 25, 1920 at Belington, WV a son of the late Herman M. and Desta Thomas Reed. On August 5, 1961 at Elkins, WV he was married to the former Elizabeth May Millard, who survives.
Also surviving are, one son, David M. Reed, one brother Kenneth Reed, four nephews, Murray Reed, Kevin Reed, John Cussen, and Remington Cussen.
After graduating from Belington High School, he studied Art three and a half years in New York City at the Grand Central School of Art and two years at the Art Students’ League. He holds degrees in History and English and has done special advance studies in Asian, African, and Latin American Art, History and culture. At the time of his retirement, he was a Professor of the Arts Emeritus at Davis & Elkins College, for over forty-nine years. He was a combat veteran of the United States Army, having served during WWII; where he received the Bronze Service Star for participation in the North Apennines Campaign from September 9, 1944 to February 7, 1945. A nationally exhibiting artist since 1947, Professor Reed’s works of art have been exhibited in hundred of museums, libraries, colleges, and universities all across the nation, from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California, including the Boston Museum, National Museum, The Library of Congress, Brooklyn Museum, and the Seattle Museum. Here, in his native WV, he is represented in the permanent collections of the Huntington Museum and the Charleston Museum at Sunrise. His works are also in museums and other public collections all across the nation. He is a recipient of many national and regional awards. Artist Reed is a member of the Salmagudi Club in NY, the Boston Printmakers, the Print Club of Albany, a founding member of the WV Water Color Society, and other regional art organizations. He is listed in the Who’s Who in American Art, Artist of Renown, Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, the Dictionary of International Biography and Art in America’s Annual Guide to Museums, Galleries and Artists. A Romantic Realist in style, he tries to capture something of the moods and character of the people and places he has come to know in his travels. Along with his family, he has traveled about the world, getting to know the people, their lands and cultures from Nepal and Kashmire in the Himalayas to villages along the Amazon; from the head waters of the Nile, the deserts lands of North Africa, all through the Andes and Australia. Recent trips have taken him to Iceland and Greenland, Finland and Norway, countries of Southern Africa and in 1996 he was in the South Pacific Islands of Fiji, the Samoas, and Tonga.
The family will receive friends at the Lohr & Barb Funeral Home of Elkins on Monday from 5 to 7 PM. Final Rites will be conducted at the Davis Memorial Presbyterian Church, Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 11:30 AM. The Rev. Dr. Peter A. Vial will officiate and interment will follow at the Mountain State Memorial Gardens at Gilman, WV, where the H. W. Daniel’s Post # 29, American Legion will present the American Flag.
