John Peter Russell

John Peter Russell

• Birth: Sydney 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.
• Education: Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, on 5 January 1881 and studied under Alphonse Legros for three years then to Paris to study painting under Fernand Cormon. (His fellow students there included Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Émile Bernard.)
• Wife: Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco Lived at: Belle Île off the coast of Brittany, where he established an artists' colony. Children: 11 children with Matiocco, of whom six survived.

Associations: 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 show him about the progress of his work. He often worked with Claude Monet at Belle Île who influenced his style.

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 is 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 destruction 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.

• 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 lifelong friend of Tom Roberts (possibly a relative), 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".

Reference

Wikipedia (Eng)

Australian/ Biography Reference

Art Gallery NSW

The Age Upcoming Exhibition

Trove Search Results Books Available

Letters From Van Gough

Video on Portrait of Vincent Van Gough by John Peter Russell