Biografie von Benjamin RUSSELL (1804-1885)

Birth place: New Bedford, MA

Death place: Warren, RI

Addresses: New Bedford, MA, active from 1841; Warren, RI, 1878-85

Profession: Marine painter, engraver

Exhibited: His panorama of a whaling voyage around the world was first exhibited in Boston in January 1849 and was subsequently shown in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Baltimore, and NYC

Work: Old Dartmouth Hist. Soc. Whaling Museum; Francis Russell Hart Nautical Mus., MIT; Mariners Mus., Newport News, VA; Mystic Seaport Mus.; Peabody Mus., Salem, MA; Nantucket Hist. Ass"n

Comments: Best known for his accurate depictions of ships and scenes of the whaling industry. Between 1829-33 he owned shares in ten whaling vessels. From 1841-45 he was a cooper aboard the whaler "Kutusoff" which circumnavigated the world. In 1848 he produced his monumental oil painting, "Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Around the World" which was 8-1/2 x 1,300 feet long. Afterward, he produced lithographs, but since he appears to have had various jobs it was not until 1867 that he was listed in the city directory as an artist. Among his best known prints are "Sperm Whaling" (No. 1, 1859 and No.2, 1862), "Sperm Whaling with its Varieties" 1870, "Right Whaling in Behering Straits" 1871, and "Abandonment of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean" 1871. He is also known to have worked with A. Van Beest and Robert S. Gifford, painting watercolor marines.

Sources: G&W; NYBD 1854 [as engraver] Childs, Thar She Blows"; information courtesy J.E. Arrington; Elton Hall, "Panoramic Views of Whaling by Benjamin Russel" (Old Dartmouth Hist. Soc., 1981); Brewington; Peters, America on Stone. "