Doel Reed, the head of the art department, was recognized as one of America's "most promising artists" in 1936.

He achieved an international reputation as a landscape artist and printmaker and was called a master of aquatint, a print-making technique that's considered a variant of etching.

Reed is also credited with starting and building the university's considerable collection of artwork that is often on display in the OSU Museum of Art at the Postal Plaza Gallery in downtown Stillwater.

He retired from OSU in 1959 to devote himself exclusively to art at his studio in Taos, New Mexico. In 1965 he published "Doel Reed Makes an Aquatint." Reed died on September 30, 1985 in Taos.

OSU's Doel Reed Center for the Arts, which encompasses art, culture and many other forms of learning, includes Reed's studio, and adobe homes that served as residences for Reed and his wife Elizabeth as well as their daughter Martha Reed. The structures and related acreage were donated to OSU by Martha before her passing in December of 2010.

The center offers special leisure learning and for-credit classes on a regular basis.