William
Russell Flint 1880 - 1969 Scotland

William Russell Flint (Sir William Russell Flint, 1880-1869) - Scottish watercolor painter.
Born April 4, 1880 in Edinburgh, in the family of the famous graphic artist Francis Whiteon Flint. He began to draw early, first under the guidance of his father, and then studying in the lithographic workshop and the Edinburgh Royal School of Art. Since 1900, after a trip to Europe, Russell Flint settled in London, where he continued his studies at the Khiterli Art School. First, the artist earned, making drawings for medical atlases, but soon began working as an illustrator in the magazine Illustrated London News, and then in other newspapers and magazines. The work of Russell Flint attracted the attention of publishers, and from 1905 to the end of the 1920s. the artist illustrated many works of English and world literature. His best-known watercolors were the ones to “The Mines of King Solomon” by G. Rayder Haggard (1905), “On the Imitation of Christ” by Thomas Kempiysky (1908), “Songs of Songs” (1909), “Mikado” (1911) and “Ruddigor” U. Gilbert (1912), "Myths of Ancient Greece for Children" by C. Kingsley (1912), "Odyssey" by Homer (1924).
In 1910, the artist participated in the exhibition of the best English illustrators in New York, and in 1913 received the silver medal of the Paris Salon.
During the First World War, Russell Flint served in the air force. After the war, the artist traveled a lot, visited Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland. During this period, he increasingly turned to landscapes and portraits that enjoyed great popularity, and wrote nude.
In 1924, Russell Flint became a corresponding member of the Royal Academy, and in 1933 - an academician.
From 1936 to 1956, the artist was president of the Royal Society of Watercolorists.
In 1947, for services to art, Russell Flint was knighted.
In 1956, the artist created for the bibliophilic publishing house “Folio Society” a series of illustrations for the book of Count M.-F.Pidance de Mayrober “Memoirs of Madame DuBarry”.
In 1962 a large retrospective exhibition of the master at the Royal Academy took place.
In the last years of his life, the artist worked on a book of memoirs, but he never completed it. Sir William Russell Flint died on December 30, 1969, short of three months before his ninetieth birthday.