He attended Geelong Grammar between 1915 and 1920, and subsequently went to England to study law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University gaining a BA, LL.B, in 1924.
Now famously, Sidney Nolan lived in a ménage à trois with John and Sunday Reed at Heide for several years until July 1947.
[5] David Rainey's 2014 play The Ménage at Soria Moria is a fictitious performance piece exploring the relationship between the Reeds and Sidney Nolan – both the heady days at Heide during the 1940s, and the less well known degeneration over the next 35 years,[6] which is also the subject of Kendrah Morgan's and Lesley Harding's 2015 Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed.
After reading the first issue of the modernist literary magazine, Angry Penguins, Reed visited its editor, Max Harris, in Adelaide and by the end of World War II he and Sunday had become the major supporters of modern art in Australia,[8] and he took on management of Victoria's Contemporary Art Society (CAS).
[11] This resulted in prosecution of Harris by South Australian police for publishing immoral and obscene material, after which the magazine soon folded.
[13] To commemorate the start of MOMAA, John Reed sent a Gray Smith painting called 'The Tank' to MoMA.