The following year his assemblage sculpture "Chorus" was acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art,[2] making Beasley the youngest artist to have work in the permanent collection.

In 1961, while a student at Berkeley, Beasley joined Peter Voulkos in building one of the first sculptor-built foundries, the storied Garbanzo Works that was instrumental in the Renaissance of bronze casting in American sculpture.

In 1963, he was one of eleven artists to represent the United States at the Biennale de Paris, where French Minister of Culture Andre Malraux awarded him the purchase prize.

At first, the jury was unaware that Beasley was experimenting with transparency as a sculptural medium and invited him based on his work in cast metal.

[7] It was these submersibles that were deployed to locate the crew compartment on the bottom of the ocean after the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated upon liftoff in 1986.

In 1980, Beasley turned back to metal, exploring a more formal geometry with a series of large sculptures produced in both stainless steel and aluminum.

He created a number of monumental commissions for public institutions including the San Francisco International Airport, Stanford University; the State of California; the State of Alaska; the Miami International Airport; the City of Eugene, Oregon; and Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey.