Reeves's subject-matter for his work as an etcher and a painter is drawn from his observation of landscape. His work in collage developed from his experimentation in etching. 

Philip Reeves RSA PRSW, 1931-2017

Born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, the son of a printer, Reeves trained at Cheltenham School of Art from 1947 to 1949 and then did two years of National Service. In 1951 he enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London to study etching. He was taught by Robert Austin and Edwin La Dell, and among his fellow students were the "Kitchen Sink" painters John Bratby and Edward Middleditch. In 1954, while still at the college, Reeves saw an advertisement for a job as a teacher of etching at Glasgow School of Art. After consulting Austin, who told him that it was a good school "but they are all Socialists", Reeves joined the teaching staff there. printmaking has been rather side-lined in the fifties, following its heyday in Scotland with such artists as D.Y. Cameron, Muirhead Bone and James McBey, and was seen as an illustrative skill or a craft subject rather than an art form in its own right. Reeves set about trying to change the school's attitude. By around 1970 he had succeeded in transforming printmaking from an appendix to the Graphic Design Department to a part of the Fine Art Department.
As well as his work at the school, Reeves was instrumental in the creation of the Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop in 1967 and the Glasgow Print Studio in 1972. These two print studios gave artists access to a space containing printing presses and other equipment where they could both practise printmaking and sell their work.
The influence of Reeves's work on the development of Scottish printmaking since the 1960s is considerable. He is represented in such collections as the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Aberdeen Art Gallery and Glasgow Art Gallery.
Reeves was elected President of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1998. To celebrate his seventieth birthday in 2001, his work was exhibited at the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow, the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh and the Fine Art Society in London.