Sydney Gordon Russell

Sir (Sydney) Gordon Russell (20 May 1892 – 7 October 1980) was an English designer, craftsman and educationist.

He came under the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement from 1904 after his father had moved to Broadway in the Cotswolds to be hotelier at the Lygon Arms, through the Guild of Handicraft, the community of metalworkers, enamellers, wood carvers, furniture makers, and printers brought in 1902 by C. R. Ashbee from east London to Chipping Campden.

Following service in World War I he became a furniture maker and designer. During World War II he developed utility furniture as chairman of the government's Utility Furniture Design Panel. In 1947 Gordon Russell became director of the Council of Industrial Design (COID) (later renamed the Design Council.

He became the first chairman of the Crafts Council. He was awarded a knighthood in 1955 for services to design.

Notable designs by him include chairs for the re-built Coventry Cathedral.

His brother Richard Drew Russell was also a designer.

Portrait bust of Sir Gordon Russell

Gordon Russell sat for sculptor Alan Thornhill for a portrait [ [http://alanthornhill.co.uk/sm_012.htm portrait head of Sir Gordon Russell] image of sculpture] in clay. The correspondence file relating to the Russell portrait bust is held in the archive [http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=584 HMI Archive] of the Henry Moore Foundation's Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and the terracotta remains in the collection of the artist. A Bronze is in the collection of the Gordon Russell Museum [ [http://www.gordonrussellmuseum.org/home Gordon Russell - Home ] ] in Broadway, Worcestershire.

ources

*Fiona MacCarthy, "Russell, Sir (Sydney) Gordon (1892–1980)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31640, accessed 9 Dec 2006]

References

External links

* [http://www.gordonrussellmuseum.org/home/ The Gordon Russell Museum, Broadway, Worcestershire]
* [http://www.gordon-russell.com Gordon Russell Limites]
* [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp58696 Portrait at NPG]