DICK MCEVOY
Richard McEvoy was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the second oldest of nine children, and he and his family moved to New Jersey and then Duxbury Massachusetts when he was 5 years old. Growing up in a small house with 8 siblings, he was encouraged to “go outside and play sports” and all nine kids turned out to be very good athletes – 7 of the 9 playing at least one sport in college. Richard played both soccer and rugby at Brown University.
“I think I first realized that I wanted to be an artist when I was7 years old and I received a small Jon Gnagy pastel set for Christmas. I immediately sat down and did portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and my second-grade teacher put them on the bulletin board. I have loved creating drawings and paintings ever since.”
When it came time for college, McEvoy thought briefly of art school but having grown up relatively poor, he knew he didn’t want to struggle with the life of a “starving artist”, so he instead set his sights on a good academic education where he could also take art courses on the side. At Brown University he was able to take art courses next door at the Rhode Island School of Design while majoring in Psychology and captaining the Brown Varsity Soccer team.
When earning his MBA from the Wharton School/University of Pennsylvania a few years later, McEvoy was also able to rearrange his entire second year so that he could study at The Barnes Museum under Violette de Mazia. Upon graduating from Wharton, Richard took a series of corporate jobs in Marketing while continuing to paint 5-10 mostly pastel paintings per year. His first real artistic breakthrough came after studying and painting with his early mentor, Herman Margulies – a Hall of Fame Painter from the Pastel Society of America.
“After my third consecutive year of studying for a week at a time in Herman Margulies’ studio, Herman gave me the best art advice of my life as he said – Just Paint! Don’t come back as a student, come back as my friend, but PAINT. You will get a little better every 50 paintings.”
In 1985 McEvoy told his wife that despite a travel schedule that had him on airplanes more than 100,000 miles per year, he was going to complete 25 paintings each year. That was his goal for the next 10 years and then in 1995 he increased the annual total to 40 paintings each year. “I did see an improvement with each 50 paintings!”
Art Organizations and Exhibitions
From 1995 through 2007 Richard was an officer and Board member of the Connecticut Pastel Society (President from 2001 thru 2007) and was then an officer and Board member of the Pastel Society of America from 2008 thru 2013. He was a featured artist in the Pastel Journal and in The Best of Pastel II and he has exhibited his work in group shows in Normandy, Giverny, and Provence France; Florence Italy and in Taipai Taiwan; and in NYC and in numerous locations across New England.
McEvoy’s work is in over 350 private and corporate collections.
