Shirley Russell was born as Shirley Ximena Hopper on May 6, 1886, in Del Rey, California. She graduated in 1907 from Stanford University where she studied art. In 1909, Shirley married Lawrence Russell, an engineer. When he died in 1912, she began teaching in Palo Alto, California and experimenting with painting. In 1921, she and her son traveled to Hawaii for a visit and decided to stay.

She studied under Hawaiian artist Lionel Walden during the 1920s and traveling to Europe several times to further her art education. Russell studied in Paris during the 1930s and the cubist influence can be seen in a number of her works. She taught art at President William McKinley High School in Honolulu for more than 20 years. Around 1935–1936, the Japanese publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885–1962) published several woodblock prints she designed. The majority of these prints depict colorful and detailed tropical flowers, while at least one print, Carmel Mission, is a California landscape.

In the course of her art career, Russell had three one-woman exhibitions at the Honoluli Museum of Art, and taught art at the University of Hawaii and the Honolulu Museum of Art. She launched many young artists on their careers when they were her students at McKinley High School, including Satoru Abe (1926–2025) and John Chin Young (1909–1997). Although she painted in representational style herself, she was a staunch supporter of abstract art, and did some abstract work herself throughout her career. She continued to paint almost daily until her death in Honolulu on February 6, 1985, at the age of 98.

The Hawaii State Art Museum, Honolulu Museum of Art, Isaacs Art Center, and Tokyo National Museum are among the public collections holding works by Shirley Russell.