His claim on fame
Artist deconstructs celebrity with photos, portraits
When Russell Young was six years old and living in Guisborough, North Yorkshire, his father sent one of his portraits into London Daily Telegraph’s National Art Competition. “It was of Robin Hood,” the 60-year-old artist remembers. “And my dad entered me into the 12-18 category — but I won. So for a while everyone in this little market town was patting me on the back. And the best part was that it had felt so easy. Looking back, I think that’s when I got struck by fame,” he says.
Over half a century on, fame is at the centre of Young’s work, and famous people are a large part of his fan base. Everyone from Barack Obama (who became a friend) to Jennifer Aniston (who bought then-husband Brad Pitt an acrylic screen-print of Steve Mcqueen for his 40th birthday) are fans and collectors of his giant Warholesque silkscreen paintings.
Young now lives in a luxury mansion overlooking the Santa Barbara coastline with his actress wife, Finola Hughes, and their three children. We meet at his converted airplane hangar studio, where the artist is working on a series of surprisingly classical giant floral silkscreens inspired by the flowers on the cover of New Order’s 1983 Power, Corruption & Lies album, which he pulls from a pile of records he listens to while he paints.
Album covers are significant for Young: after all, it was the iconic sleeve he shot for George Michael’s five-times platinum album, Faith, in 1986, that launched his career, taking him from music and celebrity photographer working with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, Björk and Michael Jackson to MTV videographer, before he found his real niche as an artist and portraitist.
“I remember the summer George first played me Faith; I knew immediately it was going to be huge. We talked about doing a classic sleeve like The Doors one with Jim Morrison and the love beads. We knew how important it was to make it timeless, with just that crucifix earring touch,” he says.
Young used the last of his dwindling cash to fill up the tank of his old Triumph Herald and head to Michael’s Faith launch party at The Savoy hotel. “Every celebrity was there; the caviar was flowing. I remember thinking: ‘Wow. This is a different world — one I could happily live in.’”
Yet, as Young spent more and more time in that celebrity world, he realized how fraught with demons many of the stars he worked with were. That paradox is at the core of his famous FAME/SHAME series, in which photographs of stars juxtaposed with celebrity mug shots question the culture of fame and its effect on those who attain it. Was that push and pull at the root of Michael’s torment? “With George, it was celebrity,” he says sadly. “He hated performing and he hated being photographed. It was producing he loved.”
When his friend died in 2016, “I just cried and cried. I remember driving my kids to school a couple of weeks later and my son lunging to turn the radio off when one of George’s songs came on. He didn’t want to see his dad cry.”
Did he ever get to meet Warhol? “Once, when I was at art college, I saw him in the window of Foyles in Covent Garden doing a book signing. I didn’t have enough money to buy the book so I went in and just stared, thinking: ‘I’ve just seen God.’ Then he called me over for a minute and talked — but he didn’t give me a free book.”