Russell Collection Fine Art Gallery

Russell Collection is one of the best galleries I have worked with. Jackie was fantastic and bent over backwards to accommodated me while I was debating a purchase. I never felt pressured into buying anything, she genuinely wanted what was best for my collection and myself.

Hearing about this gallery on
I decided to check it out. It had many pieces by Umlauf, a talented local sculptor you can also see works of at the sculpture garden in south austin. I heard they had a Picasso piece, which I was disappointed to not see in the showroom. Despite this, the art was wonderful and the young woman working there was kind and friendly, offering information about the artists. Oh, and admission is free! Absolutely recommend.

Fantastic gallery — best selection in Austin by far, and even a top for Texas! Wide range of art and prices, everything from ‘old masters’ to young contemporary artists, with paintings, sculptures, photographs, and much more. Great location too, and really helpful staff! They just opened a show with some really cool, unique new artists — excited to explore this gallery further!

We were at the Russell Collection as part of an event called #artbites. (i am not hash-​tagging here, this is what it was it called)
Basically, they asked some of the cities most talented chefs to interpret a painting or art piece into a food item.
The chefs were:
Mat Clouser, Executive Chef /​/​Swift’s Attic
Dzintra Dzenis, Executive Chef and Owner /​/​Plate By Dzintra
Andrew Francisco, Head Chef /​/​Mettle
Scott Higby, Chef de Cuisine /​/​TRIO
Peter Maffei, Chef /​/​Finn & Porter
Larry McGuire, Owner /​/​Clark’s Oyster Bar
Scott Mechura, Executive Chef /​/​Goodall’s Kitchen & Bar at Hotel Ella
Jeramie Robison, Chef de Cuisine /​/​Uchi
C.T. Turgeon, Executive Chef /​/​Hyde Park Bar & Grill
Josh Watkins, Executive Chef /​/​The Carillon
The food was amazing…
I must add that every piece of art in there was beautiful and interesting and the chefs did a great job turning art into food art…
Great event at a great Austin Art leader…

Always displaying great art

I came in for the Renoir exhibit (Alexandre Renoir, great-​gr-​gr-​gr-​gr-​great grandson of THE Renoir was there painting in person for 2 nights in a row, schmoozing with the people who walked in) and wow, just… wow. I love this place.
The door was opened for me, trays containing beautifully arranged spicy tuna sushi pieces were passed, white wine and sparkling water were awaiting me in the back, and as the night went on plates of figs wrapped in bacon and small, chocolatey tarts came out.
Oh wait, this isn’t a food review! (But I did want everyone to know how hospitable this establishment is, it’s mindblowing). The collection was phenomenal, they had brief histories and descriptions near most of the paintings. The watercolor (that is still up at the moment) when you first walk in is my dream painting, heck, I almost considered financing a few thousand just to have it. I listened on as the staff spoke in great detail about works to interested patrons, they were so utterly polite and so knowledgeable!
When I am ready to throw a few thousand at art, and that is a lofty, someday goal of mine — I will definitely browse their collection first.

Wanted to review someplace special for my 100^th review and can’t think of a better place to glorify with this honor.
A friend and I decided to hit this gallery for a recent show of Dali etchings and tapestries (unfortunately no longer on display at the time of this writing) and thanks to an early arrival, we didn’t have to fight other patrons for personal attention. We got the grand tour from Jacqueline, one of the art consultants, and learned a great deal from her. She was very approachable and unpretentious, and treated us like we were high-​roller art collectors in spite of the fact that I was wearing sneakers (foot probs at the moment). Now that I think about it, there are probably a plethora of sneaker-​wearing high rollers in the ATX, but at the time I really appreciated her down-​to-​earth attitude.
It was also surprising to discover that many galleries (including this one) offer twelve months no interest financing. Who knew? When I found out this little piece of info I actually whipped out my BlackBerry calculator and crunched the numbers. I couldn’t afford the Dali I wanted but when I’m feeling more flush it’s nice to know that I could indulge myself without too much pain.
I highly recommend going here early – they open at 10am while most galleries are shuttered until 11 – then walk across the street for a nice lunch at Portabla. It’s a great outing… made us feel like we were on vacation.