John Peter Russell
Encyclopedia
John Peter Russell was an Australia
n impressionist
painter.
suburb of Darlinghurst
, the eldest of four children of John Russell, a Scottish engineer, his wife Charlotte Elizabeth, née Nicholl, from London. J. P. Russell was a nephew of Sir Peter Nicol Russell
. After his father's death J. P. Russell enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, on 5 January 1881 and studied under Alphonse Legros
for three years. Russell then went to Paris
to study painting under Fernand Cormon
. (His fellow students there included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
and Émile Bernard
.) Russell was a man of means and having married a beautiful Italian, Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco, he settled at Belle Île
off the coast of Brittany
, where he established an artists' colony. He would have 11 children with Matiocco, of whom six survived.
Russell had met Vincent van Gogh
in Paris and formed a friendship with him. Van Gogh spoke highly of Russell's work, and after his first summer in Arles
in 1888 he sent twelve drawings of his paintings to Russell, to inform him about the progress of his work. 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. Russell did not attempt to make his pictures known.
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's daughter, Madame Jeanne Jouve, known in Paris as a singer, has stated that he had built up a collection of impressionist works – Van Gogh, Gauguin, Émile Bernard
, Guillaumin
– which he intended to give to Australia, but none are known to have survived beyond his death. In 1907, Russell's wife Matiocco died in Paris. Grief-stricken, Russell buried her next to his home and destroyed 400 of his oils and watercolours. Auguste Rodin
despaired at the drestruction of "those marvels", and in one of his final letters to Russell, said "Your works will live, I am certain. One day you will be placed on the same level with our friends Monet, Renior, and Van Gogh." Russell returned to Sydney, where he later suffered a heart attack and died in 1930.
Thea Proctor
(1879–1966), a cousin of Russell prominent in Sydney art and society circles, did much to promote his work in her later years.
Russell was a friend of Auguste Rodin
and Emmanuel Frémiet
, and his wife's beauty is immortalized in Rodin's Minerve sans Casque and Fremiet's Joan of Arc. Five of Russell's sons served in France during World War I
. His portrait of van Gogh, painted about 1886-7, was at the Van Gogh Museum
, at Amsterdam
in 1938. A sheet of portrait drawings of van Gogh is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
. Two water-colours and a small oil painting are in the National Gallery of Victoria
in Melbourne
, and there is a drawing in the Adelaide collection
.
He was also a life-long friend of Tom Roberts
, one of the main figures of the Australian Heidelberg School
of impressionism. Russell wasn't directly involved in this movement, giving him the title "Australia's Lost Impressionist".
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
painter.
Life and work
John Peter Russell was born at the SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
suburb of Darlinghurst
Darlinghurst, New South Wales
Darlinghurst is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Sydney...
, the eldest of four children of John Russell, a Scottish engineer, his wife Charlotte Elizabeth, née Nicholl, from London. J. P. Russell was a nephew of Sir Peter Nicol Russell
Peter Nicol Russell
Sir Peter Nicol Russell was an Australian foundry owner, philanthropist and university benefactor.-Early life:Russell was born at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, the second son of eleven children of Robert Russell, an engineer and ironfounder, and his wife Janet, née Nicol...
. After his father's death J. P. Russell enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, on 5 January 1881 and studied under Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros , painter, etcher and sculptor was born in Dijon. His father was an accountant, and came from the neighbouring village of Véronnes....
for three years. Russell then went to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to study painting under Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon
Fernand Cormon was a French painter born in Paris. He became a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel, Eugène Fromentin, and Jean-François Portaels, and one of the leading historical painters of modern France....
. (His fellow students there included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
and Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
.) Russell was a man of means and having married a beautiful Italian, Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco, he settled at Belle Île
Belle Île
Belle-Île or Belle-Île-en-Mer is a French island off the coast of Brittany in the département of Morbihan, and the largest of Brittany's islands. It is 14 km from the Quiberon peninsula.Administratively, the island forms a canton: the canton of Belle-Île...
off the coast of Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, where he established an artists' colony. He would have 11 children with Matiocco, of whom six survived.
Russell had met Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
in Paris and formed a friendship with him. Van Gogh spoke highly of Russell's work, and after his first summer in Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
in 1888 he sent twelve drawings of his paintings to Russell, to inform him about the progress of his work. Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
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. Russell did not attempt to make his pictures known.
In 1897 and 1898 Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
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's daughter, Madame Jeanne Jouve, known in Paris as a singer, has stated that he had built up a collection of impressionist works – Van Gogh, Gauguin, Émile Bernard
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
, Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin , was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in Paris, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop while attending evening drawing lessons. He also worked for a French government railway before studying at the Académie Suisse in 1861...
– which he intended to give to Australia, but none are known to have survived beyond his death. In 1907, Russell's wife Matiocco died in Paris. Grief-stricken, Russell buried her next to his home and destroyed 400 of his oils and watercolours. Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
despaired at the drestruction of "those marvels", and in one of his final letters to Russell, said "Your works will live, I am certain. One day you will be placed on the same level with our friends Monet, Renior, and Van Gogh." Russell returned to Sydney, where he later suffered a heart attack and died in 1930.
Thea Proctor
Thea Proctor
Althea Mary Proctor was, with Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith, one of the most famous Australian woman artists of her time. She was born in Armidale, New South Wales, New South Wales, to solicitor and politician William Consett Proctor and his wife Katherine Louise...
(1879–1966), a cousin of Russell prominent in Sydney art and society circles, did much to promote his work in her later years.
Russell was a friend of Auguste Rodin
Auguste Rodin
François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
and Emmanuel Frémiet
Emmanuel Frémiet
Emmanuel Frémiet was a French sculptor. He is famous for his sculpture of Joan of Arc in Paris and the monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps in Suez....
, and his wife's beauty is immortalized in Rodin's Minerve sans Casque and Fremiet's Joan of Arc. Five of Russell's sons served in France during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. His portrait of van Gogh, painted about 1886-7, was at the Van Gogh Museum
Van Gogh Museum
The Van Gogh Museum is an art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, featuring the works of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. It has the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.-Background:...
, at Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
in 1938. A sheet of portrait drawings of van Gogh is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
. Two water-colours and a small oil painting are in the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, and there is a drawing in the Adelaide collection
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia , located on the cultural boulevard of North Terrace in Adelaide, is the premier visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of over 35,000 works of art, making it, after the National Gallery of Victoria, the largest state...
.
He was also a life-long friend of Tom Roberts
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...
, one of the main figures of the Australian Heidelberg School
Heidelberg School
The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. The movement has latterly been described as Australian Impressionism....
of impressionism. Russell wasn't directly involved in this movement, giving him the title "Australia's Lost Impressionist".