John Russell (art critic)
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John Russell (22 January, 1919 – 23 August, 2008) was a British American art critic.
Career
Russell was born in Fleet, near London. 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 died at a hospice in the Bronx.
His books include "The Meanings of Modern Art" (1981, 2nd revised edition 1992) and books on Seurat (1965) and Vuillard (1971).