John Russell was born in Fleet, Hampshire, England, in 1919. He attended [[St Paul's School (London)|St Paul's School]] and then Magdalen College, Oxford.

He was an unpaid intern at the Tate Gallery in 1940, but moved to the country after the gallery was bombed. During World War II he worked in Naval Intelligence for the Admiralty. There he met Ian Fleming, who helped to secure Russell a reviewing position at The Sunday Times. Russell succeeded a fired critic at The Sunday Times in 1950.

Art critic Hilton Kramer of the New York Times hired Russell in 1974. Russell was chief art critic there from 1982 to 1990.

Russell was married to:

• Alexandrina, Countess Apponyi de Nagy-Appony, the former wife of Julius Lanczy. They married in 1945, divorced in 1951, and had one child, Lavinia (married Sir Nicholas Grimshaw).
• Vera Poliakoff (died 1992), married 1956, divorced 1971. Also known professionally as Vera Lindsay, she was an artist and actress, daughter of Vladimir Poliakoff and former wife of British journalist Sir Gerald Reid Barry, with whom she had two sons.
• Rosamund Bernier (née Rosamond Margaret Rosenbaum, formerly Mrs Georges Bernier, formerly Mrs Lewis Riley), a lecturer and founder of the magazine of the art magazine L'?IL. They married in 1975.

Russell died on August 23, 2008 at a hospice in the Bronx.

His books include:

• John Russell: Marc Klionsky
• John Russell: Matisse, Father & Son, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999, ISBN 0 81094378 6
• John Russell: The Meanings of Modern Art (1981, 2nd revised edition 1992)
• John Russell, Erich Kleiber: "A memoir" (London 1957)

and books on Seurat (1965) and Vuillard (1971).