George Hewitt Cushman

Background

George Hewitt Cushman was born on June 5, 1814 in Windham, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of John H. Cushman and Pamela Webb.

Education

After studying drawing under Washington Allston (Baker, post), Cushman learned line-engraving with Asaph Willard of Hartford, Connecticut. He also studied with Seth and John Cheney the latter the distinguished line-engraver with whom he later shared a studio in Boston.

Career

In 1843 his name first appeared in the Philadelphia Directory, and for the next two decades he was a resident of that city, being described in the Directory as miniature painter and subsequently as portrait painter.

He engraved, after designs by F. O. C. Darley, many of the plates for the thirty-four volume edition of Cooper’s novels (1859 - 61) and for the Household Edition of Dickens (1861); plates for Frances S. Osgood’s Poems (1850), and the portraits of Forrest in Alger’s Life of Edwin Forrest (1877). He also engraved, inter alia, a portrait of Lord Byron, after Phillips, and “Young America in the Alps, ” after G. P. A. Healy. But though he made many plates for books, as an engraver he was concerned chiefly with notes for the state banks. The passage of the National Banking Act and the opening of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Washington caused him to retire from this work.

In 1862 he removed to New York City, and resided there until his death, devoting most of his time after leaving Philadelphia to miniature painting. His miniatures have a delicacy and charm that would have won for him great fame, but he never would exhibit his work in public shows. His general reticence so far as his art was concerned is accounted for by one who knew him as having been due to a sense of modesty which “was so extreme that it became a defect. ” He underestimated his own genius, which was genuine, and which, pursued with ambition and determination, would have placed hint at the head of American miniature painters of his period. Mrs. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), quoted by French, remarked of Cushman’s miniatures that they “were always remarkable for purity and simplicity of character as well as tone. ” His portrait of himself is reproduced in Anne Hollingsworth Wharton’s Heirlooms in Miniatures.

During the latter years of his life he suffered from a painful malady which curbed his ambition as well as his physical energy.

Achievements

• Cushman is regarded as one of the best miniature painters in America in his time. Cushman's miniatures were publicly exhibited was in 1893 when in the Retrospective Exhibit at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, a group of them was given the central position. Several examples of his engraving were shown in the exhibition of the works of one hundred notable American engravers, held in the New York Public Library in 1928.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dictionary of American Biography

    (Dictionary of American Biography. 1,017 Pages.)

Personality

Cushman preferred to follow his art without making any bid for fame, painting chiefly for his friends. He never exhibited his charming miniatures although he did sign his engravings, which were "executed with much taste and ability "

Connections

In 1849 he married Susan Wetherill, granddaughter of Samuel Wetherill.

Father:

John H. Cushman

Mother:

Pamela Webb

Wife:

Susan Wetherill