Harriet Yale Russell (1939 - 2023): Available work

As a child, Harriet Yale Russell sat with her mother the painter, watching with fascination as she brushed watercolors across flat surfaces to make pictures. Soon, young Harriet took up her own brush and began to paint alongside her mother. To Harriet, painting was the most natural act in the world. “I was born to it,” she says. “I thought that’s what we were supposed to do.”

What the budding artist saw on the outside inspired her, but what she felt on the inside moved her, and continues to drive her today. The innate desire to create, to explore intangible feelings through tangible means, and to realize complex visions and dreams in two dimensions are the guideposts that loosely delineate Harriet Yale Russell’s work as an artist.

Not satisfied by any one composition or series of paintings, Russell revels in the mystery and adventure of art making. Accepting the fact that she never quite knows where any one piece will take her, Russell finds the process of discovery to be the motivating force behind her work—its raison d’ệtre. “I think it’s the wonder of it, that you don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. Her thrill lies in continually searching for the right shape or color or combination thereof, and then in the momentary satisfaction as they coalesce in a visually and emotionally engaging manner.