Russell Davis Green, painter, printmaker and teacher, was born in Traer, Iowa to Ralph Green and Harriet Davis Green on December 29, 1910. He studied art at Iowa State College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Green worked in the Illinois and New York Works Progress Administration-Federal Art Projects in the 1930s and two of his woodcuts are listed in the General Services Administration’s book WPA Artwork in Non-Federal Repositories.

Green was also a painter and lithographer and he was included in the Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1934. His work was also included in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Art Alliance; Museum of Modern Art and the Grand Central Galleries in New York; and the Iowa Federation of Women's Clubs, 1935.

Green began his long teaching career at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri in 1940 and eventually headed the art department. He is represented in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Newark Museum; and the St. Louis Art Museum.

Russell Davis Green died in Rocheport, Boone County, Missouri in March of 1986.