Cushing was born in 1871 in Fort McHenry, Maryland. He received art training from the Boston School of Fine Arts, graduating with honors. He later studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. He returned to the United States and became a professor of drawing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He returned to Paris to accept the position of art editor for the European edition of the Herald-Tribune after the turn of the century. Cushing submitted his first cartoons to Life in late 1906, which were accepted and accompanied by an offer to join the magazine's staff.

His style was rigidly formal and mannered. Many of Cushing's drawings contain Greek gods and goddesses. His characters conveyed an Olympian atmosphere even when such elements were not included. During World War I Cushing left Life and served in the Army Air Corps. He retired to his home in New Rochelle, New York, after the war and was a successful watercolorist.

Cushing died in New Rochelle, New York, 13 October, 1942.

Source:

Horn, Maurice, ed. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999.