Ed Reep was born in Brooklyn, NY. As a young boy, Reep and his family moved to Huntington Beach. After finished high school in southern California Reep gained his arts training at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. As a pupil of California watercolorist Barse Miller, he began painting in a regionalist style. Reep also studied with artists Willard Nash, Emil Bistram, and Stanley Reckless.

Like many artists of the period, Reep served as an artist-correspondent during WWII in Africa and Italy. After the War was over, Reep was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He also began teaching at a number of southern California schools such as the Art Center School of Los Angeles, Bistram School of Art, and Chouinard Art School. After moving to Greenville, NC to teach at East Carolina University, Reep returned to Bakersfield, CA.

Ed Reep is best known for his modernist aesthetic using elements of abstraction, and cubism. Still many of his artworks combine realisms with a modern interpretation. Like California modernists and colleagues Bentley Schaad, Henry Lee McFee, and Edgar Ewing, Ed Reep was exploring color and form but as a means of representational painting.