Michael Francis Reagan was born in the piney woods of south Arkansas but grew up in Army bases around the world from Japan to Germany in a military family that moved just about every two years. Reagan himself joined the Navy at the age of seventeen during the Vietnam War and afterwards studied painting at the University of Arkansas MFA program. After college he accepted an assignment with the Peace Corps in Ivory Coast West Africa, where he worked as a graphic designer and illustrator of textbooks.
Now, for over fifty years he has been a freelance artist specializing in illustrated maps and editorial illustrations for books and magazines including National Geographic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Audubon, and many others. 225 of Reagan's original illustrated maps are in the collection of the Map and Atlas Museum in La Jolla, California and will eventually be permanently housed at The Library of Congress. His hand-painted maps and paintings can also be found in private, corporate, and museum collections throughout the world.
The last few years, Reagan has been devoting his studio time to a new series of oils and watercolors titled Solitude. These poetic and dream-like paintings evoke memories of nature and the quiet solitude of the mountains, oceans, and woods. He and his wife Christine (a creative weaver) live in the mountains of western North Carolina where they paint and weave side by side in their studio. They have four grown sons and three grandchildren.
