Background
She was born Shirley Ximena Hopper in Delegate Rey, California, in 1886.
She was born Shirley Ximena Hopper in Delegate Rey, California, in 1886.
She graduated in 1907 from Stanford University, where she discovered art She studied under Hawaiian artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s and traveling to Europe several times to further her art education.
Shirley married Lawrence Russell, an engineer, in 1909. When he died in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto, and dabbling in painting. She taught art at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu for more than 20 years.
Around 1935-1936, the Japanese publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885–1962) published several woodblock prints she designed.
The majority of these prints depict colorful and detailed tropical flowers, while at least one print, Carmel Mission, is a California landscape. In the course of her art career, Russell had three one-woman exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, and taught art at the University of Hawaii and the Honolulu Museum of Artist
She launched many young artists on their careers when they were her students at McKinley High School, including Satoru Abe (since 1926) and John Chinese Young (1909–1997). Although she painted in representational style herself, she was a staunch supporter of abstract art
She continued to paint almost daily until her death in Honolulu in 1985, at the age of 98.
The Hawaii State Art Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Tokyo National Museum are among the public collections holding works by Shirley Ximena Hopper Russell.