Robert James Reed Jr. (July 9, 1938 – December 26, 2014) was an American artist and professor of painting and printmaking at Yale School of Art for 45 years.

He employs abstract symbols, color and deeply textured brushwork to create his iconic imagery.

As Reed would explain, fragments, paths, cultural and universal signs and symbols, remembered childhood images and places are organized into his imagery.

However, unable to make the final tuition payment Reed's graduation date was recorded as 1959 when he was able to pay off what he owed.

While at Yale, Reed studied with and was influenced by Josef Albers, Neil Welliver, and Jon Schueler.

[3] Over the five years of his directorship, he assembled a summer faculty of artists which included Philip Guston, Arnold Bittleman, Erwin Hauer, Gabor Peterdi, Joan Snyder, Chuck Close, Al Held, Lester Johnson, Judy Pfaff, Romare Bearden, and Sam Gilliam.

[6] He authored several art education programs including Acre, Spokane, Washington; Site, Cancun, Mexico; SIX: Summer In Experiment, Saratoga, New York; and The Institute for Studio Studies, Auvillar, France.

[8] Throughout his academic career, Reed continued to be a prolific artist producing new bodies of work every 8 to 10 years.

His artistic career began in the 1960s and found early success with a one-man show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1973.

He continued to work in a self-imposed obscurity due in part to his persistence in developing his personal visual and symbolic language of abstraction; and in part to the tragic and untimely death both his mother and sister, his only sibling, in 1965 which left him deeply reclusive about both his personal and artistic life.