John Russell (Australian painter)

Early years Russell was born on 16 June 1858 in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, the eldest of four children to Scottish-born engineer John Russell and his wife Charlotte, née Nicholl, from London. John Russell senior's engineering firm produced much of Sydney's colonial-era ironwork. Training in Europe '', 1886, Van Gogh Museum At the age of eighteen, he went to England to take up an engineering apprenticeship. Russell then went to Paris to study painting under Fernand Cormon. His fellow students there included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Émile Bernard, and Dutchman Vincent van Gogh, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. The two artists particularly bonded over being foreigners in the Parisian avant-garde scene. They maintained correspondence, and some of Van Gogh's private letters reveal his deep fondness for Russell and his art. A portrait of Van Gogh by Russell, painted in 1886, was allegedly Van Gogh's favourite depiction of himself: the Dutch artist even wrote to his brother Theo, ten months before his death, exhorting him to "take good care of my portrait by Russell, which means a lot to me". Belle Île Russell married the renowned beauty Marianna Antonietta Mattiocco, an Italian seamstress and model of Auguste Rodin's. They settled at Belle Île off the coast of Brittany, where he designed his own home and established an artists' colony. Claude Monet often worked with Russell at Belle Île and influenced his style, though it has been said that Monet preferred some of Russell's Belle Île seascapes to his own. In 1890, Russell left Belle Île and traveled to Antibes in a horse-drawn cart, where he rented a house for the winter and produced some of his most acclaimed work. Grief-stricken, Russell took her body to Belle Île in a rowboat and buried her next to his home. He then destroyed an estimated 400 of his oils and watercolours. Russell and his new wife moved between Italy, Switzerland, and England, where Russell's five sons served in the Allied forces during the First World War. In 1922, Russell briefly lived in New Zealand where he helped one of his sons start a citrus farm. In 1921, Russell returned to the Sydney area, where he lived in a fisherman's cottage in suburb of Watsons Bay and had a small wooden studio on Sydney Harbour. He suffered a fatal heart attack in 1930 while lifting rocks to build a wall outside his cottage. ==Legacy==

Russell's daughter, Madame Jeanne Jouve, known in Paris as a singer, stated that he had built up a collection of impressionist works—Van Gogh, Gauguin, Bernard, Guillaumin—which he intended to give to Australia, but none is known to have survived beyond his death. Sydney artist Thea Proctor, a cousin of Russell's, did much to promote his work in her later years. She died in 1966. Her cousin was Emmie Russell who was an orthoptist and she gained a large collection of paintings by Proctor and her uncle John Russell. She had a large collection of art that she donated to Australian galleries. He was also a lifelong friend of Tom Roberts, one of the main figures of the Australian Heidelberg School of impressionism. Russell was not directly involved in this movement, giving him the title "Australia's Lost Impressionist". The first feature-length documentary about Russell, Australia’s Lost Impressionist: John Russell, was released in 2018. Directed by Catherine Hunter and narrated by actor Hugo Weaving, the film was partially shot at Belle-Ile. In 2023, Russell's 1897 painting Souvenir de Belle-Île sold at Deutscher and Hackett in Melbourne for A$3,927,273, making it the most expensive of his publicly auctioned works. == Style and works ==

(pictured: Antibes, c. 1890, Art Gallery of New South Wales). Russell first became interested in impressionism in Paris, where he experimented with a variety of different techniques. In 1885, he made a trip to Cornwall and visited plein air colonies. In 1897 and 1898 Henri Matisse visited Belle Île. Russell introduced him to impressionism and to the work of Van Gogh (who was relatively unknown at the time). Matisse's style changed radically, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me." Russell was particularly known for his skill as a colourist; during his stay on Belle Île he ground and mixed all his own pigments. Russell referred to Monet as "the prince of Impressionists," while they painted. They were close friends and often saw each other. Russell later bought land on the island where the two met and lived there for the next twenty years. He visited places around his now home and was inspired by the clear light and bright colors. This led to Russell devoting himself to painting en plein air and showed his growth as an artist. ==Gallery==

File:John Peter Russell Peonies and head of a woman.jpg|Peonies and Head of a Woman, 1887, National Gallery of Victoria File:John Peter Russell Dr Will Maloney.jpg|Dr Will Maloney, 1887, National Gallery of Victoria File:John Russell, The garden, Longpré-les-Corps-Saints.jpg|The garden, Longpré-les-Corps-Saints, 1887, private collection File:John Russell - A clearing in the forest - Google Art Project.jpg|A Clearing in the Forest, 1891, Art Gallery of South Australia File:John Peter Russell In the Afternoon.jpg|In the Afternoon, Art Gallery of New South Wales File:John Russell - In the morning, Alpes Maritimes from Antibes - Google Art Project.jpg|In the Morning, Alpes Maritimes from Antibes, c. 1891 File:John Russell Antibes 1892.jpg|Antibes, 1892, Queensland Art Gallery File:John Peter Russell - Belle Ile en mer, 1898.jpg|Belle Ile en mer, 1898 File:John Peter Russell Rough Sea.jpg|Rough Sea, Belle-Île, 1900, National Gallery of Victoria File:John Peter Russell - Boys on the Beach, Belle Ile.jpg|Boys on the Beach, Belle Ile, c. 1900 File:John Peter Russell - La Pointe de Morestil par mer calme, 1901.jpg|La Pointe de Morestil, Calm Sea, 1901 ==See also==