Inspirational Artists: The English Watercolour - Russell Flint

Sir William Russell Flint RA (1880 - 1969) was a Scottish artist and illustrator who was known especially for his watercolour paintings of Spainish women. Born in Edinburgh he was educated at Daniel Stewart's College and then Edinburgh Institution and from 1894 to 1900 Flint apprenticed as a lithographic draughtsman while taking classes at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh and he then worked as a medical illustrator in London while studying part-time at Heatherley's Art School and furthering his art education by studying independently at the British Museum.

During visits to Spain, Flint was impressed by Spanish dancers, and he frequently painted Spanish ladies throughout his career. The art world crisitsism was not of his painting but often his eroticized treatment of the female figure. Indeed not only did they adorn his painting but even the compositions of natural life only had beautiful women in them! But they were beautiful and often scantly dressed!

He enjoyed considerable commercial success especially with his prints but had mixed respect from art critics.

Flint was elected president of Britain's Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours (now the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1936 to 1956, and knighted in 1947.