Mary Benedict Fosburgh

Mary Benedict Fosburgh (Cushing)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/78115479/mary-benedict-fosburgh

Mary Benedict Cushing was the eldest daughter of Harvey Williams Cushing (1869–1939) and his wife, Katharine Stone (Crowell) Cushing. Her father was a pioneering neurosurgeon and was the first person to describe Cushing's disease.

Known collectively as “the Cushing sisters,” she and her two younger sisters were also described as the “three beautiful, millions-marrying daughters” of Harvey Cushing in a Time Magazine article (2 Nov 1953) reporting on her second marriage to the artist James Whitney Fosburgh. Her sister, Betsey Cushing (1908–1998), was first married to James Roosevelt II, a son of President Franklin Roosevelt, and later to John Hay Whitney, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, president of the Museum of Modern Art, and U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Her youngest sister, Barbara “Babe” Cushing (1915–1978), married Stanley Grafton Mortimer, Jr., a sportsman and advertising executive, and later William S. Paley, the chief executive of CBS.

Mary Cushing was married in 1940 for the first time to William Vincent Astor (1891–1959), a member of the prominent New York family. They divorced in September 1953 and the following month she married James Whitney Fosburgh, an artist, art collector, and art historian who served as Chairman of the Special Committee for White House Paintings under both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Mary and her second husband amassed a significant art collection including works by Cézanne, Winslow Homer, and Renoir.

She was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York City Center, and was on the board of the Yale Art Gallery. She was also a major supporter of the American National Theater and Academy and the Henry Street Settlement.

Mary Cushing Fosburgh died on November 4, 1978 at her home in Manhattan after a long illness.