In the mid-1970s, Krushenick began spiritually withdrawing from the New York art scene from which he'd already physically departed. He then embarked, after many visiting stints at various institutions during the prior decade, on his only long-term engagement as an educator, serving as a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1977 to 1991. Though he never stopped producing new paintings, his prominence in the New York and global art scenes faded away over time. But he still had champions, including the New York-based outsider curator Mitchell Algus and his Mitchell Algus Gallery, which held two exhibitions of Krushenick's work, in 1997 and in 1999. The latter occurred after Krushenick died of liver cancer in New York on February 5, 1999, at age 69. As of 2021, at least ten posthumous solo exhibitions have helped spur renewed interest in Krushenick's work and legacy. Two of those exhibitions—at Gary Snyder Gallery in New York and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, respectively—prompted major literary treatments: John Yau's Nicholas Krushenick: A Survey (2011) and Ian Berry's Nicholas Krushenick: Electric Soup (2016).
