Morgan, Russell

Russell V. Morgan received a bachelors degree and a masters degree from Northwestern University (1915) before beginning his career as the Supervisor of Music in the Highland Park, Illinois public schools (1915-16) and Director of State Teachers College in La Crosse, Wisconsin (1916-20). He served as an army bandmaster in Germany from 1918-1919 before becoming Supervisor of Music in Cleveland public schools (1923) and organist at Old Stone Church in Cleveland, Ohio, positions he would hold until his death. Russell V. Morgan was involved in many music education organizations and co-authored several books on music education and school music songbooks. In 1936 he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Northwestern University. Russell V. Morgan was inducted into the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) Hall of Fame in 1996.

Painter and sculptor Morgan Russell was born in New York City. He studied at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art with James Earle Fraser, Andrew Dasburg and Robert Henri from 1906 to 1907, before settling in Paris in 1909 where he remained for almost forty years. After meeting Stanton Macdonald-Wright in 1911, he became interested in Synchromism and studied with Canadian color theorist Ernest Tudor-Hart. In 1913 Russell produced the first abstract Synchromies and in 1917 developed a series of Synchromies entitled EIDOS. He visited California in the early 1930s, teaching at the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles from 1931-1932, in addition to lecturing at museums in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Russell left France permanently in 1946 and died in Pennsylvania in 1953.