RUSSELL, MORGAN

born , 1886, New York, N.Y., U.S. died May 29, 1953, near Philadelphia, Pa. American painter who was an early proponent of abstraction. After studying under Robert Henri in New York City, Russell moved to Paris in 1906 and lived there for 40 years. In 191314 he and Stanton Macdonald-Wright established Synchromism (q.v.) as an avant-garde movement, issuing manifestos and exhibiting together in Munich, Paris, and New York City. Russell called his paintings synchromies to describe his reliance on colour for spatial and emotional depth. He was among the first American painters to pursue scientific colour theory for artistic expression.