Russell Recchion
United States
About Russell Recchion
Russell Recchion, the award-winning and nationally acclaimed portrait and figurative artist, paints to discover the spirit of the person in front of him. Painting professionally for more than thirty years, his commissions encompass judges, corporate executives, physicians, both university presidents and deans, and philanthropists. Recchion has paintings in collections in Europe and the United States.
Some notables who have sat for a portrait include Judge Arlin Adams, United States Circuit Judge; Vaughn Bryson, CEO Eli Lilly & Co.; Dr. Robert Shattner, inventor of Chloraseptic Mouthwash and benefactor to the University of Pennsylvania's School of Dentistry; and Dr. Lillian Brunner, author of the standard textbook, Medical Surgical Nursing, and board member of the Presbyterian Medical Center, Philadelphia.
Recchion grew up outside Pittsburgh. As a young boy, he was selected by his 4th grade art teacher to attend the Tam-o-Shanter classes at the Carnegie Museum where another Pittsburgh artist Andy Warhol attended before him. Graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he began his career as an advertising artist, but a semester abroad in Italy convinced him to make fine art his career.
Pursuing his passion for painting, Recchion was accepted at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia where he received the Cadwalader Landscape Prize. He quickly immersed himself in the academy’s tradition of American portrait painting, drawing inspiration from such celebrated early artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Cecilia Beaux, Thomas Eakins, and Charles Wilson Peale, the founder of the Academy. To learn the techniques of the old masters, Recchion copied their portraits in the museum at the Academy and at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
He spent much time in Philadelphia traveling to Bucks County to paint the same fields, quarries, and river scenes captured on canvas by Daniel Garber and Edward Redfield, two modern painters who have influenced his work. While at PAFA, he met Nelson Shanks and studied with him after graduating.
Recchion has won many awards including "The Best of Show" at the Indiana State Museum Hoosier Salon 2020 and the Oil Painters of America 2022 Portraiture Award of Excellence at the National Exhibition at the Steamboat Art Museum.
Russell Recchion published his book Collected Works in 2019.
He is listed in John Castagno’s American Artists: Signatures and Monograms: 1800-1989 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989).
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 16th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.