Flint Sir William Russell

( 1880 - 1969 )
BIOGRAPHY

He was born on 4th April 1880 in Edinburgh. He was the eldest son of Francis Wighton Flint, the Scottish artist, under whom he studied painting and drawing. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a firm of lithographers, where he remained for 6 years. He was also taking evening classes at the Royal Institution School of Art. In 1900, he came to London and was at first employed to do medical drawings, later being appointed to work on the ‘Illustrated London News’ from 1903-1907. During this time, he studied at Heatherley’s School in the evenings. He became interested in book illustration, his first works being the illustrations to Rider Haggard’s ‘King Solomon’s Mines’. He took up etching, which he studied at the Hammersmith School of Art in 1914. As early as 1905, he was exhibiting watercolours at the Salon de la Societe Nationale in Paris and in 1906, exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy, where he exhibited regularly until his death. He was made an Associate in 1924 after hanging only three oils and a full Member in 1933. He was also made a member of the Royal Society of painters in Watercolours in 1917 and was President of the Society from 1936 to 1956. He spent much time abroad painting on the Continent especially in Spain, France and Italy. Works in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Liverpool and Cardiff Galleries and several other Scottish and provincial galleries represents him. He was knighted in 1947 and died in London in 1969.

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