Barney Reid

Barney Reid grew up in Yuma Valley, Arizona earning his BA at Arizona State College. Studying with Grant Wood and Fletcher Martin, he wrote his Master’s thesis in lithography under Emil Ganso at the State University of Iowa. Reid moved to San Diego to work as a graphic designer after teaching at Arizona State University (between 1946-49).

Shortly after arriving in San Diego, Reid went into business selling screen-printed fabrics. His short-lived, ReidArt company was housed in the Consolidated Aircraft factory which solicited rental spaces prior to re-awakening its military intents at the outbreak of the Korean War.

A founding member of San Diego's Allied Craftsmen, Reid began showing jewelry in 1951and served as the organization's president in 1953. Renowned for his enamel work, he was a consummate craftsman, and worked in metal, clay, wood, and marble, as well as painting in oil and designing furniture. Employed as a graphic designer at the Naval Electronics Lab (NEL), he helped provide jobs to a number of local artists, including Harry Bertoia, with whom Reid shared a studio for a short time during his years in San Diego.

Barney Reid’s jewelry was exhibited nationally in the 1950s and '60s in the shows Designer Craftsmen USA (1953), American Jewelry and Related Objects (1955), Craftsmanship in a Changing World (1956), and Contemporary Craftsmen of the Far West (1961).

Scarce today, Reid’s work from the late ‘40s through the 1960s is heartily abstract and often geometric in style. His abstract ceramic work from the 1940s and ‘50s often featured various patterns of interlocking lines, shapes and even human forms – ideas that are often repeated in his paintings and printed fabrics.

From the late 1970’s until his death, he worked in intaglio printmaking almost exclusively - this work was represented by the David Zapf Gallery.