{{Short description|English artist (born 1888)}} '''Joan Russell''' (1888{{snd}}after 1958) was an English artist noted for her comprehensive study of the damage caused to Canterbury during the Baedeker Blitz.
== Life == Russell was born in Canterbury in 1888 as one of seven daughters of the Scottish-born, British Army officer John Cecil Russell who was then a colonel and commander of the cavalry depot in the city and his wife Hester Frances.<ref>{{cite news |title=Major-General J. C. Russell|work=Daily Telegraph |date=31 March 1909|page=5}}</ref><ref name=cl>{{cite news |last1=Passino |first1=Carla |title=A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma |url=https://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/COUNTRY-LIFE-ARTICLE.jpg |work=Country Life |date=6 November 2024|page=174}}</ref> She followed her father to the Isle of Mull, Scotland, and Bramford Hall in Suffolk.<ref name=cl/> The family moved back to Canterbury in 1902, where they lived at Barton Court.<ref name=faversham>{{cite news |title=Death of Major-General Russell |url=https://d3d00swyhr67nd.cloudfront.net/_source/bna-faversham-times-and-mercury-and-north-east-kent-journal-saturday-03-april-1909.jpg |work=Faversham Times and Mercury and North-East Kent Journal |date=3 April 1909}}</ref> Her father died in 1909 and the 1911 census records Joan living at Barton Court with her mother and her five spinster sisters; two children of her sister, Hester Frances, who had married Hugh Burdett Money-Coutts, 6th Baron Latymer, were also present on census day. The census also records the presence of six female servants in the 22-room house.<ref>{{cite web |title=1911 England Census for Alexandra Alberta Russell |url=https://d3d00swyhr67nd.cloudfront.net/_source/1911-census-of-england-and-wales-russell-family-of-barton-hall-canterbury.jpg |access-date=21 December 2025}}</ref>
Because of the quality of her draughtsmanship and portraiture it is thought that she received formal training in art but it is not known where at.<ref name=cl/> Russell is known to have completed several watercolour portraits and at least one in pastel. During the interwar years her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the New English Art Club, the Royal Society of Miniaturists and the Royal Society of Portraitists. She also completed drawings of many of the city's historic buildings.<ref name=cl/>
During the Second World War Canterbury was targeted by German bombing raids as part of the Baedeker Blitz on culturally significant and historic English cities. Russell carried out a comprehensive study of the damage caused to Canterbury in drawings which were completed in pencil with a delicate watercolour wash. The historian Hubert Pragnell considers the work forms the most extensive record of bomb damage to any British city aside from London.<ref name=cl/> The bulk of the drawings were made in 1943, in the year following the worst of the air raids.<ref>{{cite web |title=Joan Russell Drawings of Canterbury Street Scenes in 1943 and 1944 |url=https://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/joan-russell-drawings-of-canterbury-street-scenes-in-1943-and-1944 |website=Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society |access-date=21 December 2025}}</ref>
Russell continued to paint after the war but no longer exhibited her work.<ref name=cl/> In 1958 she, along with her sisters, presented a portrait of a man, to the Royal College of Physicians.<ref>{{cite web |title=Portrait of a Man |url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/portrait-of-a-man-192506 |website=Art UK |access-date=21 December 2025 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Wolstenholme |first1=Gordon Ethelbert Ward |title=The Royal College of Physicians of London: Portraits |date=1964 |publisher=J. & A. Churchill |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Royal_College_of_Physicians_of_Londo/cSJrAAAAMAAJ|page=370 |language=en}}</ref> The portrait was considered by the family to be that of an ancestor, the naturalist Alexander Russell (1715–1768), but the age of the sitter and style of dress mean it is likely a member of the later generations of the family.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Starkey |first1=Janet |title=The Scottish enlightenment abroad: the Russells of Braidshaw in Aleppo and on the coast of Coromandel |date=2018 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-36212-3 |page=281 |url=https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/7865/StarkeyAppendices.pdf}}</ref> Joan Russell never married and, because only Hester among her sisters married, had little in the way of family to continue her legacy. This led to her becoming forgotten. Her work was donated to Canterbury Cathedral in the 1960s. Pragnall considers her work comparable to that of Dennis Flanders and Hanslip Fletcher who documented the London blitz.<ref name=cl/>
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == *Examples of her work: {{cite web |title=Joan Russell Drawings of Canterbury Street Scenes in 1943 and 1944 |url=https://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/joan-russell-drawings-of-canterbury-street-scenes-in-1943-and-1944 |website=Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society}}
Category:1888 births Category:Date of death unknown Category:Artists from Canterbury Category:20th-century English women artists Category:World War II artists