Reder studied for three years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The next seven years he made a living carving cemetery monuments and creating his stone sculptures on the side in his hometown of Czernowitz. In 1930 he moved to Prague because of anti-Semitic demonstrations. In 1935 Reder had his first solo exhibition at the gallery of Manes, an association of artists in Prague. Two years later he moved to France and lived near the sculptor Maillol who befriended him. He exhibited at the Wildenstein Gallery in Paris in 1940 but had to flee Paris; all the works in his studio were later destroyed by the Germans. He traveled to Spain and then Havana, Cuba in 1941. Reder worked on woodcuts and drawings at this time. He arrived in New York in 1943, acquired a Guggenheim fellowship, was shown regularly at the Whitney Museum and was shown at the Philadelphia Museum in 1949. Reder's bronze works have included musical subjects, and biblical and religious figures based on Jewish traditions. In 1960 Reder received a Ford Foundation grant and in 1962 was awarded membership in the Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1961 he was given a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum and for the first time in its history the museum devoted three of its floors to a single artist. Reder's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Jewish Museum in New York City; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
