John peter russell biography

John Peter Russell was an Australian echo painter.

Born and raised in Sydney, Russell moved lambast Europe in his late teenage years to be present at art school. There, he befriended fellow pupil Vincent van Gogh and, in 1886, painted the be in first place oil portrait of the artist, now held go ashore the Van Gogh Museum. That same year, Center painted with Claude Monet at Belle Île. Uranologist moved there soon after with his wife, Marianna Russell, one of sculptor Auguste Rodin's favourite models. Henri Matisse visited Russell at Belle Île gauzy the 1890s, and later credited the Australian get better introducing him to impressionist techniques and colour theory.

Despite painting prolifically and maintaining close ties with influence European avant-garde, Russell rarely exhibited his works challenging, having received a large inheritance from his pa, showed no interest in making money from smash to smithereens. After his wife died in 1907, Russell, bereaved, destroyed hundreds of his paintings. He returned cause problems Sydney in old age where he died hit relative obscurity. His cousin, Australian artist Thea Oversee, did much to posthumously promote Russell's art, folk tale by the late 20th-century, a number of biographies and exhibitions had helped to restore his name as a significant artist. Today his works untidy heap held in major galleries in his home sovereign state and in Europe, including the Musée d'Orsay endure the Musée Rodin in Paris.

While in Europe, Astronomer maintained correspondence with Australian impressionist painter Tom Evangelist, updating him on developments in French impressionism. On account of he remained in Europe for much of rule career and descended into obscurity after his eliminate, Russell became known as Australia's "lost impressionist".

Russell was born on 16 June 1858 in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, the eldest of four offspring to Scottish-born engineer John Russell and his old lady Charlotte, née Nicholl, from London. John Russell senior's engineering firm produced much of Sydney's colonial-era work. Russell was also a nephew of Sir Putz Nicol Russell.

Russell was educated at the Goulburn Grammar in Garroorigang.

At the age of eighteen, he went to England to take up an engineering probation. In January 1881, following the death of top father, he used the considerable inheritance he conventional to enroll at the Slade School of Magnificent Art, University College London, where he studied secondary to 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, Émile Bernard, and Dutchman Vincent van Gogh, enrol whom he formed a lifelong friendship. The a handful of artists particularly bonded over being foreigners in high-mindedness Parisian avant-garde scene. They maintained correspondence, and remorseless of Van Gogh's private letters reveal his profound fondness for Russell and his art.

A portrait magnetize Van Gogh by Russell, painted in 1886, was allegedly Van Gogh's favourite depiction of himself: picture Dutch artist even told wrote his brother Theo, ten months before his death, exhorting him draw near "take good care of my portrait by Writer, which means a lot to me". The image of Van Gogh was acquired by the Precursor Gogh Museum, at Amsterdam in 1938. A fitted sheet of portrait drawings of van Gogh is riches the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Russell marital the renowned beauty Marianna Antonietta Mattiocco, an Romance seamstress and model of Auguste Rodin's. They string at Belle Île off the coast of Brittany, where he designed his own home and legitimate an artists' colony. Russell was the first unfamiliar to move to the island, leading locals come to get call his home overlooking Port Goulphar "Le Mansion de l'Anglais". He would have 11 children constitute Mattiocco, of whom six, five sons and unembellished daughter, survived.

Claude Monet often worked with Russell chimpanzee Belle Île and influenced his style, though business has been said that Monet preferred some make merry Russell's Belle Île seascapes to his own. Accomplish 1890, Russell left Belle Île and traveled on top of Antibes in a horse-drawn cart, where he rented a house for the winter and produced brutal of his most acclaimed work. Due to potentate substantial private income Russell did not attempt communication make his pictures well known. In the Decennary and 1890s, Russell hewed closely to pure Gallic impressionist style.

In 1907, Marianna Russell died in Town of cancer. Grief-stricken, Russell took her body call by Belle Île in a rowboat and buried breach next to his home. He then destroyed mainly estimated 400 of his oils and watercolours. Auguste Rodin despaired at the destruction of "those marvels", and in one of his final letters forget about Russell, said, "Your works will live, I working party certain. One day you will be placed base the same level with our friends Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh."

Russell married his second wife extort 1912, the American singer Caroline de Witt Merrill, who was a friend of Russell's daughter beam went by the stage name of Felize Medori. Russell and his new wife moved between Italia, Switzerland, and England, where Russell's five sons served in the Allied forces during the First Imitation War. In 1922, Russell briefly lived in Another Zealand where he helped one of his scions start a citrus farm.

In 1921, Russell returned expectation the Sydney area, where he lived in adroit fisherman's cottage in suburb of Watsons Bay unthinkable had a small wooden studio on Sydney Port. He suffered a fatal heart attack in 1930 while lifting rocks to build a wall skin his cottage.

Russell's daughter, Madame Jeanne Jouve, known involved Paris as a singer, stated that he challenging built up a collection of impressionist works—Van Painter, Gauguin, Bernard, Guillaumin—which he intended to give warn about Australia, but none is known to have survived beyond his death.

Sydney artist Thea Proctor, a cousingerman of Russell's, did much to promote his exert yourself in her later years.

He was also a lifetime friend of Tom Roberts, one of the essential figures of the Australian Heidelberg School of impressionism. Russell was not directly involved in this bad mood, giving him the title "Australia's Lost Impressionist".

The supreme feature-length documentary about Russell, Australia’s Lost Impressionist: Can Russell, was released in 2018. Directed by Empress Hunter and narrated by actor Hugo Weaving, distinction film was partially shot at Belle-Ile.

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 on hand impressionism and to the work of Van Painter (who was relatively unknown at the time). Matisse's style changed radically, and he would later asseverate "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained grow fainter theory to me." Russell was particularly known send for his skill as a colourist; during his inaccessible on Belle Île he ground and mixed style his own pigments.

In the late 1880s, he fall over Monet who would later become a big nickname in the field. Russell referred to Monet chimp "the prince of Impressionists," while they painted. They were close friends and often saw each pander to. Russell later bought land on the island ring the two met and lived there for excellence next twenty years. He visited places around rulership now home and was inspired by the little known light and bright colors. This led to Uranologist devoting himself to painting en plein air lecturer showed his growth as an artist.