Karl Russ is an Austrian painter.

Karl Russ studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and painted mainly scenes from mythology, antiquity and depictions of Austrian history. In 1806 he worked inside the Albertina .

In 1810, he was court painter to Jean-Baptiste d'Autriche and accompanied him on walks through Styria to explore the country and find patterns for the paintings he requested. He captured the clothes of the ordinary people of the country with their Styrian costumes in a series of watercolors. These paintings constitute important documents on traditional clothing between 1810 and 1820, from the festive dresses of bourgeois women to the dresses of a peasant boy.

Karl Russ is the father of painter Leander Russ .