Michele Russo

Michele Russo received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in 1934. He moved to Portland, Oregon in 1947 to teach at the Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art) where he worked for twenty-seven years mentoring generations of Northwest art students. His extensive exhibition history includes the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962, “Art of the Pacific Northwest” at the Smithsonian Institution in 1974, the Corcoran Museum of Art’s Biennial in 1983 and “Michele Russo: A Fifty Year Retrospective” at Portland Art Museum in 1988. Honors received include the Oregon Governor’s Award for the Arts and the Metropolitan Arts Commission Award (Portland). He also co-founded the seminal contemporary arts organization Portland Center for the Visual Arts in 1973.