painter and art teacher, was born in Nelson, second of the three daughters of the eight or nine children of Samuel Athanasius Cusack, an army surgeon who had settled in New Zealand because of his health, and his wife, née Holme. The Cusacks moved to NSW when Edith was three. All the girls were educated at home, first at Newcastle and later at Seven Hills, Sydney. After their father died of tuberculosis, the family was left in poverty. The eldest girl, a nurse, died young, also of TB. Edith attended weekly art classes at Parramatta taught by the Sydney painter Joseph Arthur Bennett. Fees being a problem, she worked for him concurrently as assistant teacher.
In 1888 Edith exhibited some sketches from nature in the amateur Fine Arts section at the Women’s Industries Exhibition in Sydney. She travelled to France for professional teaching in the early 1890s, using £300 left to her by an uncle, supplemented with earnings from the sale of her paintings. The Illustrated Sydney News reported that she was staying at the 'Governesses and Artists’ Institute in Paris’ while studying at a nearby branch of the famous Julian atelier. She 'worked very hard’ for three years (under Bouguereau, Lefebvre and Fleury) and had a painting hung in the Salon.
Back at Sydney, her sister Aline Cusack apparently showed Laragh and Drawings from Life competitively on her sister’s behalf at the 1892 Exhibition of Women’s Work in Sydney. Other works were sent to the 1893 NSW Art Society exhibition and when Edith returned in 1894 she continued to exhibit with the Society. The Herald noted that her 'clever pastel drawing’ of Aline had been purchased for fifteen guineas from that year’s exhibition by the Art Gallery of NSW. Her portraiture was commended in 1895, Doreen (a 'startlingly-colored’ oil, according to the Bulletin ) being mentioned as a notable example of the new and 'very different style’ she had acquired in Paris. Her other oils included For Mother (a child holding up a flower to a 'toil-worn woman’), judged to be in a rather mannered 'French’ style, and a portrait of 'Miss Meston’ ( Emily Meston ) 'rather tryingly arranged in sky-blue robes’ (reproduced – in black and white – in the catalogue). Day Dreams and Miss Weaver , Edith’s other exhibits, were pastels.
Although Edith Cusack had 'not done as much as usual’ for the 1896 show, Gathering in the Harvest 'with its careful drawing … and slightly French “tone”’ and the 'clever sunlight effects’ of her chief work, We twa hae run about , were admired. Her chief exhibits in 1897 were Reading ('The best pastel in the gallery’), Alice Grey ('a capital oil of a girl smelling a blossom’) and The Sculptress . In 1900 the AGNSW purchased her Wildflowers , de-accessioned in 1946. She continued to exhibit with the Art Society until 1935 and was a Council member from 1898 to 1903. Her paintings were included in the 1898 Grafton Gallery exhibition, 'Australian Art in London’ and her Christmas Bush was one of the few works sold.
From 1896 Edith and Aline Cusack had a studio in Paling’s Building, Sydney. Neither joined the successful rebels of the Society of Artists in 1907, which was perhaps a factor in their subsequent neglect. Both exhibited at the 1907 Women’s Work Exhibition, Edith’s contributions including At the Florist’s , previously shown with the Art Society in 1902 for sale at 100 gns (reproduced in the Sydney Mail , 13 September 1902, 677 [from Eric Riddler]).
Together the sisters revisited Europe in 1914, did voluntary war work in England for the duration, then returned to Sydney and again opened a studio together at Paling’s. Both were exhibiting members of the Society of Women Painters. Edith died in her home at Pymble on 20 May 1941.
- Writers:
- Mendelssohn, Joanna
Kerr, Joan
Eric Riddler
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2020
