Eugene Cusack (American, 1940–2025) was a realist painter and printmaker known for
figurative oil paintings, portraiture, still lifes, and etchings distinguished by strong
draftsmanship and a classical approach to structure and form. Born in the Bronx, New
York, Cusack was largely self-taught in his early years. After high school, he worked as a
plumber before pursuing art professionally.
In the early 1960s, Cusack enrolled at the Art Students League of New York (1963–
1965), where he concentrated on anatomical drawing and painting. During this
period, he exhibited in the Greenwich Village Spring Art Show and subsequently
received a grant to study in San Miguel de Allende, where he lived and worked from
1965 to 1968.
While in Mexico he was commissioned to paint The Entombment of Christ and The
Raising of the Cross for the Oratorio Cathedral of the Order of San Felipe. After
returning to the United States, he lived and worked in San Diego and New York before
relocating to Bristol, England, where he resided for seven years and exhibited widely.
Cusack returned to New York in 1977 and established a studio near Union Square.
His work was exhibited at Hammer Galleries, Martha Jackson Gallery, FAR Gallery,
and Harbor Gallery in New York, and at David A. Cross Gallery and Bristol Art Gallery
in England. He held solo exhibitions at Harbor Gallery (Cold Spring Harbor, New
York), Court Galleries (Cincinnati, Ohio), and Capricorn Gallery (Bethesda, Maryland),
among others. He also participated in group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum,
Cornell University, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, and the annual
exhibitions of Allied Artists of America.
Cusack’s work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution,
Georgetown University, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Oratorio Cathedral of the
Order of San Felipe. Archival materials relating to his exhibitions are held at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
His awards include the Jane Peterson Prize from Allied Artists of America (1968) and
the Salmagundi Club Prize from Allied Artists of America (1971). He also received the
Ford Foundation Tuition Scholarship (1963–1965) and the John F. & Anna Lee Stacy
Scholarship Fund Scholarship (1968–1972).
After the mid-1980s, Cusack withdrew from active exhibition but continued to work
privately as a painter and printmaker, in Long Island City, New York, until his death in
2025.
His wife, Carol Kaylor, was an important presence in his life and frequently served as
the subject of his portrait paintings and etchings, reflecting the personal and intimate
nature of much of his figurative work. Together, they raised two daughters.
Source: Daughter of Eugene Cusack.
