The Clock Tower, Venice

Mary Lilian Russell was born on February 21, 1866, at Huyton, Lancashire, the second child and eldest daughter of Alfred Holgate Russell, a watch manufacturer, and his wife Jenny (née Townsend). In 1881, she lived at Fairlawn, Huyton-with-Roby, Prescot, Lancashire, with her parents and six siblings. The household employed a governess and four indoor servants.

Lilian studied at Herkomer's Art School in 1895 and also studied abroad. She married Oswald Notman Bell, a stockbroker's manager, at Toxteth Park, Lancashire in 1899. Following her marriage, she exhibited under the name Lilian Russell Bell at the Liverpool Academy of Arts Autumn Exhibition of Pictures in September 1899.

By 1911, the couple lived at 2 Queen's Gardens, Muswell Hill, Hornsey, Middlesex, with their three children: Janice Mary, Alfred Russell, and Roger Murray, all born at Wallasey, Cheshire. During the Edwardian period, she worked in Walberswick, Suffolk.

Bell exhibited four paintings under her maiden name of Lilian Russell at the Society of Women Artists and fifty-eight works under the name Lilian Bell at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Mary Lilian Bell died on November 15, 1947, at the Raglan Hall Hotel, Queen's Avenue, Muswell Hill, London. Her husband Oswald Notman Bell died in 1949.