Dennis Cusick

Tuscarora

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

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."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Cusick

"Historical records abound with evidence that Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)formerly used visual representations for many purposes. Early European observers reported clan symbols carved or painted on gables of longhouses. Images on trees, grave posts, and war posts also recorded exploits in visual symbols. Tattoos and body painting were another common expression of the visual dimension. Still later, clan symbols were used to sign treaties and land deeds. The evidence for Haudenosaunee use of bark, hide, powder horns, and other surfaces for painting is less convincing, and easel painting or sketching did not develop as a new art until the 19th century.

The earliest known Haudenosaunee easel painter is Dennis Cusick. LittIe is known about him but he may be the son of Nicholas Cusick, a Tuscarora chief and the brother of David Cusick, an historian and also a painter. Few paintings exist by Dennis Cusick. Watercolors done in 1821 show scenes from the Seneca Mission School under the direction of James Young at the Buffalo Creek Seneca reservation. Two other paintings exist by Dennis Cusick, one showing a Tuscarora village scene and the other the Christening of a native child. These and drawings by David Cusick are all that exist of early Iroquois paintings until 1852. "Indian Maidens" by Thomas Jacobs, dated March 27, 1852 is the only publicly displayed painting by this possible Tuscarora artist. The few other paintings ascribed to Thomas Jacobs are similar to "The Indian Maidens, for all show dignified, proper, but traditionally dressed Haudenosaunee." https://web.archive.org/web/20090915193649/http://www.iroquoismuseu...