John Russell CBE (22 January 1919 – 23 August 2008) was a British American art critic.
John Russell was born in Fleet, Hampshire, England, in 1919. He attended St Paul's School and then Magdalen College, Oxford.
He was an unpaid intern at the Tate Gallery in 1940, but moved to the country after the gallery was bombed. During World War II he worked in Naval Intelligence for the Admiralty. There he met Ian Fleming, who helped to secure Russell a reviewing position at The Sunday Times. Russell succeeded a fired critic at The Sunday Times in 1950.
Art critic Hilton Kramer of the New York Times hired Russell in 1974. Russell was chief art critic there from 1982 to 1990.
Russell was married to:
Russell died on 23 August 2008 at a hospice in the Bronx.
His books include:
and books on Seurat (1965),Vuillard (1971) and Henry Moore