Dennis Cusick

Dennis Cusick (c. 1800–1824) was a Tuscarora painter from New York and one of the founders of the Iroquois Realist Style of painting.

Biography Dennis Cusick was born c. 1800 to the Tuscarora tribe, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. His father was Nicholas Cusick (1758–1840), a Revolutionary War veteran who had fought with the Indian Rangers. The family lived in Oneida County, New York, but moved to Niagara County, New York, when Nicholas was hired to be an interpreter and assistant to the local missions to the Tuscarora. A missionary, Elkanah Holmes, wrote that Nicholas promised "to collect materials for making up an account of the present state of the Indians, as well as for a history of the ancient tribes inhabiting the state."

This interest in documenting the lifeways and history of area tribes must have influenced his sons, particularly Dennis' older brother, David Cusick, who wrote and illustrated Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations in 1828.

In January 1818, Dennis joined the Tuscarora Congregational Church. He painted two watercolors to decorate collection boxes for the church. The Congregationalist mission supported a school on the Seneca Reservation at Buffalo Creek, New York.

Dennis died at the age of twenty-four.

Two almost identical watercolor paintings were painted by Dennis to adorn collection boxes. "Seneca School House" is dated July 3, 1821, and "Seneca Mission House" is dated April 16, 1822.

"Seneca Mission House, Nov. 15, 1821" features girls studying in Mrs. James Young's class. Quotes about the nature of work hover over a scene of Tuscarora girls, busy as a variety of spinning wheels, overseen by an elaborately coiffed Mrs. Young at the paintings' left.

Two of Dennis' other paintings survive. Dated March 4, 1822, "Evening Psalm" is a watercolor on paper, signed by the artist.