Alfred Russell in his Croton-on-Hudson studio, 1965: photographer unknown
Alfred Russell
Alfred Russell (1920-2007), master of both abstract expressionism and figurative art, was “a painter with a gift for the magic of spidery lines,” according to critic Jed Perl. Russell began his career in the mid-1940s, studying at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17 and at Columbia University (MA, 1946). His early abstract work was featured in eight Whitney exhibitions from 1949-55, in MoMA’s major abstract show in 1951 and, with Pollock and de Kooning, in the controversial 1951 Paris exhibition Véhémences Confrontées that contrasted American with European painters. In 1953, Russell renounced avant-garde abstraction as “The Bourgeoisation of Modern Art,” lamenting in a provocative essay the rise of “assembly-line product for the needs of mass culture.” In the words of painter David Carbone, “he walked out of the history of post-war abstraction and into oblivion.” For the next five decades, he worked in a diverse range of mostly figurative styles, including classical and geometric forms, exhibiting rarely. He continued to teach at Brooklyn College until 1974, and painted and drew until his death.