KINGSTON, N.Y. — Cusie Pfeifer,

formerly of Little Rock, died Friday, July 17th, after a brief non-Covid illness.

Born November 4, 1936, Cusie was originally named Marcuse, after her grandmother. Family and close friends called her Cusie, but the professional world knew her as Marcuse. Cusie would be the first to say that she died rather than “passed away”; she called it as she saw it - a lie, a scary fact, a shady transaction; and she disagreed loudly with any attempt to censor writing or a work of art.

Cusie, as a young woman from Arkansas, lived in both San Francisco and then New York, working jobs in book publishing, at the New School, and The Museum of Modern Art. She eventually went to work for Robert Schoelkopf at his gallery, the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery. When he decided that dealing in photography was not profitable, Cusie ventured into it herself and boldly opened the Marcuse Pfeifer Photography Gallery on Madison Avenue.

Cusie soon became widely known in the New York art world for her brilliant and controversial exhibition “The Male Nude in Photography.” The exhibit upset the predominately male art critics who considered it a scandal that nude males should be “objectified”. Perhaps Cusie thought it fair enough, and that photography could indeed participate in the discourse of male form in art as well as female. She did not intend to antagonize questions of sexuality or morality, but The Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery was now on the map. She later published a book titled “The Male Nude”.

Cusie said she was not an artist herself. How she saw things in the world defined her and brought her the admiration of the art world, and the gratitude of her artists. Cusie played a pivotal role in raising photography to the status of fine art and discovered some of America’s most important contemporary photographers: Peter Hujar, Lois Conner, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, among others.

“I wasn’t good at selling,” admitted Pfeifer, who chose photographs because they moved her visually and emotionally. She chose a piece when she looked at it and felt that jolt of excitement, and, she said, “It made my teeth hurt.” Her clientele appreciated her sharp eye and trusted her judgement about where a photograph belonged in the evolution of the art.

Those who already knew her well in her “hometowns” of Little Rock, New York City, Kingston NY, and San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, enjoyed her insights into the creative life of well-known artists and writers. Friends loved visiting her home where her unique aesthetic was in the art works, but also in the details of design, sense of order and natural harmony in even normally mundane fixtures or accessories.

In recent years, Pfeifer donated her entire collection of photography to the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art on the Southern University of New York campus in New Paltz, N.Y. She was honored in 2019 by the Dorsky for her achievements in her field and the museum held an exhibit titled “In Celebration: A Recent Gift from the Photography Collection of Marcuse Pfeifer”.

Cusie spent her life championing women and women’s issues. She promoted women in the arts - especially women photographers - whom she believed were not fairly seen in their own time. She heartily consumed an excellent arts and liberal arts education at Sarah Lawrence College. It was the vitality of the humanities at Sarah Lawrence which also gave her another eye: for literature, history, travel and also a voice for politics, social justice, and humane treatment of animals.

Cusie seemed born to uphold the First Amendment. Freedom of expression was what her life was about, just as her mother had been an early proponent of a woman’s choice and family planning, Cusie believed that just dragging a dogma around with you is not the same as living the principles you hold to be sacred. The most sacred of those, she believed, is the right AND duty to vote. Pfeifer was also a founding member of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center in Kingston NY where she ran the Center’s art exhibition program for over 10 years. She loved to chuckle to people that she was the “head exhibitionist” at the Center.

Cusie was predeceased by her parents, Harry and Raida Cohn Pfeifer; sister Susan Pfeifer, as well as Nancy Pfeifer, and Aaron Winborn; She is survived by her brother, Don Pfeifer (Maggie Hogan); nephews, Paul Pfeifer (Tricia), Brad Sherman (Chris); nieces, Jennifer Maddox (Richard), Debbie Pfeifer Li (Yongqian), Pamela Pfeifer (Luther Sutter), Jessica Pfeifer (Jim Thomas), and Gwen Pfeifer, as well as all of their children. She leaves family and many friends, and most of all she leaves the world a better place because she was here.

Memorials may be made to the Arkansas Art Center, PO Box 2137, Little Rock, Ark. 72203-2137 or to the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, PO Box 3994, Kingston, N.Y. 12402. Arrangements are under the direction of Ruebel Funeral Home, ruebelfuneralhome.com