Calligrapher, painter, printmaker, and designer Richard E. Beasley was born on February 1, 1934 in Gooding, Idaho. His formal higher education began at the College of Idaho, Caldwell, and he earned his Bachelors degree in Advertising Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, and his Masters of Fine Arts degree in painting and printmaking at the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California.

He began his teaching career in the California Polytechnic, Pomona and the Webb School, Claremont, and the Pomona Catholic Boys School, La Verne, CA. He then relocated to New York, where he worked as an art instructor at the New York University. He ultimately setted with his family in Flagstaff, Arizona, and began a career as an instructor of art at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in 1968, a position he held until 1982 when he became a full professor. From 1987 to 1989, he was the Interim Director of NAU's School of Design, at which point he took up the Assistant Dean position at NAU's College of Creative and Communication Arts, where he remained until 1992.

Beasley was an award-winning calligrapher, and was a member of the Calligraphic Society of Arizona at Phoenix, serving as President in 1980 and given an Honorary Lifetime membership. He was also a member of calligrapher and illuminator societies in London, England; Offenbach am Main, Germany; Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa; Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and the Western Reserve Calligraphers, in Cleveland, Ohio where he was an Honorary Member.

Among his major commissions were works for Frederick W. Schmidt, Inc., NY; The Mines Press, Inc., New York; Burton Wenk Associates, Design Studio, New York, among many others. He also worked as a free lance designer in New York and elsewhere. 

Richard E. Beasley died unexpectedly while attending a the 12th International Assembly of Lettering Artists in Rochester Hills, Michigan, on July 17, 1993. A scholarhip was set up in his name though NAU.