Edward J. Reed, who goes by Ted, lives in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife and two young daughters. He paints in his home studio and teaches portrait, figure, and still-life painting at The Art League School located in The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia.

BACKGROUND

COLLEGE

Ted received his A.B., summa cum laude, in 1986 from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He majored in English Literature and minored in Studio Art. He devoted much of his time during college to drawing, etching, and painting the countryside and people of

LAW SCHOOL

From 1987 to 1989, Ted attended Harvard Law School. He stopped painting during these years in the misguided belief that the demands of a legal education required him to forego all distractions. He received his J.D., cum laude, in 1989, and then clerked for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

For the next ten years, Ted practiced civil litigation for two top-flight law firms in Washington, D.C. He devoted half of his professional time to commercial litigation and the other half to plaintiff-side civil rights lawsuits. Throughout this decade, he rarely lifted a paintbrush.

Ted became disabled with a permanent, chronic pain condition and was forced to retire from legal practice at the end of 2000.

RETURN TO ART

Ted began painting again in earnest, to the extent that his disability allowed, at the end of 2001. His return to art was difficult. The pain he experiences was and is a constant impediment. What is more, over a decade of neglect had stripped him of the few skills he'd developed through his college years. Nonetheless, his discovery that, with care, he could paint at all was uplifting. When he first became disabled, he'd feared that his physical condition would rob him of art altogether.

Over the next few years, Ted took classes at The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2003, he began teaching there intermittently and, in the fall of 2004, The Art League asked him to join the faculty.

RESUME

TEACHING EXPERIENCE – THE ART LEAGUE SCHOOL

•   Oil Painting, winter-summer 2005, 2006-07 full academic year

•   Portrait & Figure, Oil and Pastel, 2004-05, 2005-06, and 2006-07 full academic years

•   Painting, Oil and Acrylic, summer 2004

•   Portrait & Figure Painting, winter 2004

•   Still Life in Oil, winter 2004

RECENT AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS

•  Best of Oil, American Artist 70th Anniversary Readers' Choice Award , November 2007

•  Semifinalist, American Artist 70th Anniversary Art Competition, Summer 2007

•  Best Portfolio Winner, 2007 International Portrait Competition, "The Art of the Portrait," Portrait Society of America, Reston, Virginia, May 2007

•  Awarded September 2008 Solo Exhibition, in a juried competition for a solo exhibition, at The Art League Gallery, Alexandria, VA

•  2nd Place, 2006 International Portrait Arts Competition, Portrait Society of Canada, "The Miracle of the Portrait" Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, December 2006