Ralph Cusack (painter)

Cusack was born 28 October 1912 at Drumnigh House in Portmarnock to James Robert Roland Cusack, a banker and later stockbroker, and Eileen Cusack (née Watson).^[1][5][6] Cusack was the great-grandson of Sir Ralph Smith Cusack and was the younger cousin of the painter Mainie Jellett.^[1][2]

Educated at Arnold House and Charterhouse School, Cusack grew up in a wealthy Anglo-Irish Unionist family.^[1] From 1931 to 1934, Cusack studied economics at Pembroke College, Cambridge.^[1][2]

In the mid 1930s Cusack moved to Menton, Alpes-Maritimes with his wife Kira Heiseler to help improve his Tuberculosis.^[1][2] Largely self-taught, Cusack began painting and developed a Cubist style.^[1][2] In May 1939, Cusack and Heiseler returned to Ireland.^[1][2]

In 1940, Cusack was elected a member of Society of Dublin Painters and joined The White Stag Group the following year.^[2][7] During 1942 to 1943, Cusack worked as a set designer with Anne Yeats.^[3][8] In May 1943, Cusack help found the Irish Exhibition of Living Art.^[1]

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Cusack lived at Uplands House, Annamoe where he operated a horticultural business with his wife Nancy Sinclair Cusack.^[1][8][9]

By 1950, Cusack had ceased to paint.^[1][2] Cusack returned to France in 1954, and settled in Grasse in order to grew flowers for perfume.^[2][8] In 1958, Cusack published his only novel Cadenza, an Excursion in Ireland and London.^[4][8][10] The novel was subsequently published in the United States the following year.^[10]

In the 1930s, Cusack married Kira Heiseler before later divorcing in the mid 1940s.^[1] Cusack and Heiseler had two children.^[1]

Cusack later married Nancy Sinclair Cusack (née Sinclair). with whom he had 3 children.^[1][11]

On 20 July 1965 died in Grasse, aged 52.^[1]

Anthony Cronin, who boarded for a time with the Cusack family, based the character of Sir George Dermot on Cusack for his 1964 novel The Life of Riley.^[8]