Russell Young

Russell Young’s artistic career began with photography

Russell Young was born in York in the UK on 13 March 1959. He was placed into foster care as a baby, who then adopted him and moved to the north of England. He was very interested in American culture and photography from an early age and went on to study film and graphic design- initially at the University of Chester and the Exeter College of Art and Design. Instead of the hoped-for fame, the move to London initially brought great economic difficulties for the young artist; he was unable to gain a foothold and was homeless on the streets for several months. The artist’s career took off at the end of the 1970s when Young made a name for himself with pointed photographs of live club shows; he also worked for magazines such as the fashion and culture journal BLITZ which was published from 1980 to 1991 and enjoyed some significant success. 

The transition to painting was difficult 

As a young photographer, Russell Young portrayed numerous prominent personalities of the time, namely the musicians Björk, Bob Dylan, Morrissey, Diana Ross and Bruce Springsteen, and photographed the cover for George Michael's album Faith, which was released in October 1987. In the following years, the artist also directed various music videos, including for the group The Brand New Heavies and the singer and actress Eartha Kitt. In 1992, he married the British actress Finola Hughes, with whom he had a biological son and two adopted children. In the 1990s, Russell Young gave up photography and film and began to devote himself to painting with great enthusiasm. He opened his own studio in Brooklyn, New York in 1998, but again had to struggle with teething troubles, which temporarily led him into a veritable creative crisis. He overcame this by developing a collage technique that allowed him to combine photographic and painterly work and thus do justice to his talent.

The important themes of transience and death 

Russell Young remained true to his celebrity motifs, but found a new approach - both in terms of technique and content: In 2003, he achieved great acclaim with his Pig Portraits series - the images were based on police photographs of stars and starlets who had come into conflict with the law. With these highly acclaimed screen-print portraits, Young wanted to make society aware of the darker side of fame. The rest of Young's work was also aimed in this direction, as he increasingly explored death and transience alongside fame. The artist himself was unexpectedly affected by these themes when he fell seriously ill at the beginning of 2010 and lay in a coma for a week. After his recovery, he processed the death of the young art student Meredith Hunter, who had pulled a gun at a Rolling Stones concert in 1968 and was subsequently beaten to death by Hells Angels rockers. A friendlier motif came in the form of the Brazilian footballer Pelé, whom Young also honoured with a screen print.

Russel Young lives and works today primarily in New York and California.