John Russell (Australian painter)

John Peter Russell (16 June 1858 – 30 April 1930) was an Australian impressionist painter.

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

Despite painting prolifically and maintaining close ties with the European avant-garde, Russell rarely exhibited his works and, having received a large inheritance from his father, showed no interest in making money from art. After his wife died in 1908, Russell, grief-stricken, destroyed hundreds of his paintings. He returned to Sydney in old age where he died in relative obscurity. His cousin, Australian artist Thea Proctor, did much to posthumously promote Russell's art, and by the late 20th-century, a number of biographies and exhibitions had helped to restore his reputation as a significant artist. Today his works are held in major galleries in his home country and in Europe, including the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée Rodin in Paris.

While in Europe, Russell maintained correspondence with Australian impressionist painter Tom Roberts, updating him on developments in French impressionism. Since he remained in Europe for much of his career and descended into obscurity after his death, 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 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. Russell was also a nephew of Sir Peter Nicol Russell.

Russell was educated at the Goulburn School in Garroorigang.

At the age of eighteen, he went to England to take up an engineering apprenticeship. In January 1881, following the death of his father, he used the considerable inheritance he received to enroll at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where he 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, 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". The painting of Van Gogh was acquired by 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.