Otho Cushing

Otho Williams McD. Cushing[1] (October 22, 1870 – October 13, 1942)[1] was an American artist, known primarily for his early 20th century illustration and cartoons, for magazines and posters.[2] His sometimes-homoerotic style, often featuring classical figures, was influenced by Frederic Leighton, J. C. Leyendecker, and Aubrey Beardsley.[3][4]

Otho Cushing
Cushing in 1911
Born
Otho Williams McD. Cushing

(1870-10-22)October 22, 1870
Baltimore, Maryland
DiedOctober 13, 1942(1942-10-13) (aged 71)
New Rochelle, New York
NationalityAmerican
EducationTufts School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Académie Julian
Known forIllustration, painting

Early life

Otho Cushing was born in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland on October 22, 1870.[5] He was the son of U.S. Army officer Harry Cooke Cushing (1841–1902) and Martha Wetherill (née Budd) Cushing (1846–1931).[5] Among his siblings was Nicholas Cooke Cushing and Harry Cooke Cushing Jr. His maternal grandfather was Princeton University professor Samuel Budd and was a descendant of Nicholas Cooke, a colonial governor of Rhode Island.[5][6]

He spent his youth in different cities where his father was stationed; in 1880 the family lived in Providence, Rhode Island.[1] In 1887, he finished his secondary education at the Bulkeley School in New London, Connecticut. He studied art at Tufts School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in 1891 at the Académie Julian in Paris, where his teachers included Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens.[7]

Career

He returned to Boston in September 1893 and became drawing instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He published drawings in Life magazine.[8] Around 1900, he returned to Paris, where he became artistic director of the European edition of the New York Herald.[1] While sailing on the RMS Oceanic in 1901, Cushing spent time with fellow first class traveler, Mary Lawrence, who wrote about him in her diary, stating: "He is absolutely as perfectly made as one of his own Greek gods and goddesses. From top to toe he is absolute grace."[9]

When he returned to the United States, he joined the art staff of Life and lived in New York.[3][10] His drawings were "highly stylized, and, at first, depicted handsome young men and women in Greek or modern costumes."[5] In 1907, Life published a series of his cartoons about President Theodore Roosevelt entitled The Teddyssey (a parody of The Odyssey).[11][12]

In 1917, he left Life and joined the Army Air Service, serving as a captain in charge of "supervising the camouflaging of American airfields on the Western Front".[13][14] Several of his posters and drawings deal with the American involvement in World War 1. After the war, he retired to New Rochelle and embraced a career as watercolorist.[5]

  • L'Après-midi des faunes
  • Life magazine cover, 1919
  • Enlist in the Air Service
  • "Weren't They Funny?", cover of Life magazine, December 10, 1914

Personal life

In 1897, Cushing, then 27, attended the Bradley-Martin Ball, a fancy-dress ball thrown by Cornelia Sherman Martin at the Waldorf Hotel in New York.[15] Reportedly, Cushing "was, in fact, thought to have gone rather too far in his impersonation of an Italian falconer of the fifteenth century. His costume consisted of full tights and a short jacket, with a little cap and long locks, while a large stuffed falcon was perched on his left wrist. The costume left little to the imagination, as far as the figure was concerned, and, although historically accurate in every detail, was so decidedly pronounced that he caused a sensation wherever he moved."[15]

Cushing, who did not marry, was a member of an artist's club known as Le Cercle d'Amis, and was friends with Charles Allan Gilbert.[3] In 1908, Cushing and Gilbert threw a costume party for Le Cercle d'Amis at Gilbert's studio, 17 West 35th Street.[10] He was also friends with Dr. Alfred Stillman II, who gave a luncheon at the clubhouse of the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, New York in 1937.[16]

After the War, he lived with his younger brother, architect Nicholas Cooke Cushing, at 4 Harbor Lane in New Rochelle. After a month's illness, he died at the New Rochelle Hospital on October 13, 1942.[5]

Collections
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References
  1. "Stripper's Guide: Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Otho Cushing". strippersguide.blogspot.fr. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  2. "Otho Cushing Caricature Biography". www.sil.si.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  3. Harrity, Christopher (12 April 2014). "Artist Spotlight: Otho Cushing". Advocate.
  4. Gallatin, A. E. (1903). "A Note on Otho Cushing's Drawings". Brush and Pencil. 11 (5): 351–355. doi:10.2307/25505856. JSTOR 25505856.
  5. "OTHO Otho Cushing, 71; New. Rochelle Illustrator Was Known for Line Drawings in Old Life Magazine, Air Captain in Last War Series on Theodore Roosevelt, 'The Teddyssey,' Parodied Adventures of Ulysses" (PDF). The New York Times. 1942-10-15. p. 23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  6. Horn, Maurice; Marschall, Richard (1983). The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. Chelsea House Publishers. pp. 177–178. ISBN 9780877543992. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  7. Horn, Maurice, ed. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999.
  8. Close, John Weir (2013-10-15). A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages: The Boom, Bust, and Boom Culture of M&A. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781137397751.
  9. Levenstein, Harvey (2000). Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France from Jefferson to the Jazz Age. University of Chicago Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780226473796. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  10. "ARTISTS GIVE COSTUME PARTY; Otho Cushing and C. Albert Gilbert Entertain Le Cercle d'Amis" (PDF). The New York Times. 22 March 1908. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  11. Cushing, Otho (1907). The Teddyssey. Life publishing Company.
  12. "Drawing From Life". www.sil.si.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  13. "49. Untitled, 1918/19 | Edward Steichen's World War I Years". 2017-03-19. Archived from the original on 2017-03-19. Retrieved 2017-11-21.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  14. "For action enlist in the Air Service / Otho Cushing, Capt. A.S.U.S.A." The Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  15. Close, John Weir (2013). A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages: The Boom, Bust, and Boom Culture of M&A. St. Martin's Press. p. 237. ISBN 9781137397751. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  16. TIMES, Special to THE NEW YORK (14 August 1937). "ROUND OF PARTIES AT SOUTHAMPTON; Mrs. Fulton Cutting Is Hostess at Large Dinner for Mrs. Wilmerding Montgomery" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  17. "Collection". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  18. "Musée d'Orsay: Notice d'Artiste". www.musee-orsay.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-11-21.
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