Joan Russell

Joan Russell (1888after 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. She followed her father to the Isle of Mull, Scotland, and Bramford Hall in Suffolk. 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.

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.

Russell continued to paint after the war but no longer exhibited her work. 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. 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.