Everett Jeffrey (1906-1983) -- student

A native of Oxford Mills, Iowa, Everett Jeffrey spent a small part of his childhood in Pennington County, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Jeffrey family returned to Iowa, and Everett resided with his father in the 1930s before truly embarking on his career as an artist. He was a self-taught painter and sculptor who achieved regional acclaim due to the Little Gallery of Cedar Rapids. The gallery's director, Edward Rowan, promoted Jeffrey's work in local, one-man shows (1932) and at the Iowa Art Salon (1931,1933). Jeffrey attended the Stone City art colony, and in the fall of 1932, joined Robert Francis White and other artists to create the Cooperative Mural Painters Group of Cedar Rapids.

The collective, consisting of White, Jeffrey, Harry Donald Jones, and Don Glasell, received the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) commission for the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids (1936). Titled "Law and Culture," the mural's vivid scenes of chaos and order on the open plains caused numerous complaints. The installation was later destroyed under court orders. Jeffrey resided in various locations including Little Rock, Arkansas and Phoenix, Arizona, where he worked as a carpenter and designed his own home (1950s).