Otho Cushing

Otho Williams McD. Cushing (October 22, 1870 – October 13, 1942) was an American artist, known primarily for his early 20th century illustration and cartoons, for magazines and posters. His sometimes-homoerotic style, often featuring classical figures, was influenced by Frederic Leighton, J. C. Leyendecker, and Aubrey Beardsley. Early life Otho Cushing was born in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland on October 22, 1870. He was the son of U.S. Army officer Harry Cooke Cushing (1841–1902) and Martha Wetherill (née Budd) Cushing (1846–1931). 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. He spent his youth in different cities where his father was stationed; in 1880 the family lived in Providence, Rhode Island. 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. Career He returned to Boston in September 1893 and became drawing instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He published drawings in Life magazine. Around 1900, he returned to Paris, where he became artistic director of the European edition of the New York Herald. 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."