Identity:
Howard Gardiner Cushing was a painter of portraits, especially of women.
Life:
Cushing studied at Harvard University and later in Paris as a pupil of Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) and Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921). He exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1892 and 1896.
Examples of his work are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI (of which he was a founding member).
Cushing was friendly with JW in Paris and is referred to in JW's correspondence in the 1890s (#13855, #13856).
A memorial exhibition of his work was held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in December 1916.
Bibliography:
Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, 1956-61; Fink, Lois Marie, American Art at the Paris Salons, Cambridge and Washington, DC, 1990.