Frederick John Eversley (August 28, 1941 – March 14, 2025) was an American sculptor who lived in SoHo, New York, and for many years, as a Venice Beach resident, was associated with the California Light and Space movement. His parabolic resin sculptures have been exhibited in more than 200 galleries and museums worldwide.[1]
Background
Eversley was born on August 28, 1941, in New York City and raised in the East New York section of Brooklyn.[2][3][4] His father, Frederick W. Eversley Jr., born in Christ Church, Barbados, was a civil engineer at Republic Aviation for more than 20 years, and the founder of a Black-owned construction business that played a key role in building the New York State Office Building in Harlem, a Rockefeller University faculty residential tower, the Bronx Zoo World of Darkness building, and numerous multi-family housing projects.[5][6] His mother, Beatrice Syphax Eversley, a school teacher and PTA leader,[3][7] traced her ancestry to both the Syphax family, prominent African-Americans who arose from slavery in Northern Virginia, and the Shinnecock Indian Nation of Suffolk County, New York.The eldest of four children, Eversley had one sister, Rani, and two brothers, Donald and Thomas.
Eversley was first attracted to the parabola form as child reading about Isaac Newton and his experiments.[7][8] He tinkered in his father's electronics basement workshop,[3] playing with his grandfather’s radio and photography equipment to emulate scientific theories.[8] Eversley graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1959, and worked at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center in Greenwich Village with Marcia Silverman Tucker, who would be responsible years later for giving Eversley his first art show in New York.[3][7] Eversley attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (later renamed Carnegie Mellon University), where he majored in electrical engineering and was the only Black engineering student.[9][10] He did not take one art class at Carnegie Mellon.[7][11] In 2023, Eversley received a Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon.[9]
Eversley died at a hospital in Manhattan after a brief illness on March 14, 2025, at the age of 83.[2][4][12]
He moved to Venice, California, in 1964, where he would live for more than 50 years.[6]
In 1967, he retired from engineering to become a full-time artist after a down-the-hill car accident almost cost him his life; he broke a femur bone and had to walk on crutches for more than one year. While he was recovering, he started making his own art pieces.[6][7]
In 1980, Eversley purchased a five-story, cast iron building in SoHo as an investment.[3] In 2019, he was forced out of his Venice studio and moved back to New York City, where he lived with his artist wife, Maria Larsson.[15][10]
Artworks
Eversley was a pioneer among Black abstractionists[16] and created sculptures from cast resin and other materials.[17] He referred to his process as “centripetal casting,” where he used a mold instead of his hands to shape the sculpture's form into a parabola.[7] His work focused on the use of space and light, connecting people through positive energy spaces,[16] and working with the Earth's natural resources to create art.[18]
He used basic geometric forms to play with light refraction and incorporates parabolic curves to evoke thick lens and mirror images.[19] In the 1970s, Eversley was considered to be a part of the California Light and Space movement.[7]
