Roger Fry

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Roger Fry

Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English

England

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites....
, and a member of the Bloomsbury group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group was an England collectivity of friends and relatives who lived in or near London during the first half of the twentieth century....
. Despite establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, as he matured as a critic he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Edouard Manet....
.

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Encyclopedia

Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English

England

Art critic

Bloomsbury Group

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Edouard Manet....
. The first figure to raise public awareness of modern art

Modern art

Modern art is a term that refers to artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s through the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era....
in Britain, he was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark

Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, Order of Merit , Companion of Honour, Order of the Bath, Fellow of the British Academy was an England author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the most famous Art history of his generation....
as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a British art critic and social thought, also remembered as an author, poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian era and Edwardian period eras....
... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry".

Life

Born in London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, the son of the judge Edward Fry

Edward Fry

Sir Edward Fry FRS , a judge in the British Court of Appeal of England and Wales and also an arbitrator on the Hague Tribunal. He was a Quaker, son of Fry Family and Mary Ann Swaine....
, he grew up in a wealthy Quaker family. Before going up to Cambridge, Fry was educated at Clifton College

Clifton College

Clifton College is a coeducational Public school in Clifton, Bristol, England. It was founded in 1862....
. Fry studied at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas in Cambridge, it is referred to as King's within the university....
, where he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe....
. After taking a first in the Natural Science tripos

TRIPOS

TRIPOS is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of University of Cambridge and it was headed by Dr....
, he went to Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
and then Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
to study art. Eventually he specialised in landscape

Landscape art

Landscape art depicts scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather usually is an element of the composition....
painting.

In 1896, he married the artist Helen Coombe and they subsequently had two children, Pamela and Julian. However, Helen soon became seriously mentally ill. In 1910, she was committed to a mental institution, where she remained for the rest of her life. Fry took over the care of their children with the help of his sister, Joan Fry

Joan Mary Fry

Joan Mary Fry Social reformer.Joan Fry was born July 27,1862 in London, the daughter of Sir Edward Fry and his wife, Mariabella Hodgkin , who were Religious Society of Friendss....
.

In 1911, Fry began an affair with Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell was an England Painting and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf....
, who was then experiencing a difficult recovery from the birth of her son Quentin

Quentin Bell

Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell was an England art historian and author.Bell was the son of Clive Bell and Vanessa Bell n?e Stephen, and the nephew of Virginia Woolf n?e Stephen....
. Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband, Clive Bell

Clive Bell

Arthur Clive Heward Bell was an England Art critic, associated with the Bloomsbury group....
. They remained lifelong close friends, even though Roger's heart was broken in 1913 when Vanessa fell in love with Duncan Grant

Duncan Grant

Duncan James Corrowr Grant was a Scottish people Painting and member of the Bloomsbury Group. He was a cousin of John Grant, Lord Huntingtower and grandson of the second Sir John Peter Grant ....
and decided to live permanently with him.

After short affairs with such artists as Nina Hamnett

Nina Hamnett

Nina Hamnett was a Wales artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' chanteys, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia....
and Josette Coatmellec, Roger too found happiness with Helen Maitland Anrep. She became his emotional anchor for the rest of his life, although they never married (she too had had an unhappy first marriage, to the mosaicist Boris Anrep

Boris Anrep

Boris Anrep was a Russian artist, active in United Kingdom, who devoted himself to the art of mosaic.In Britain, he is known for his monumental mosaics at the National Gallery, London, Westminster Cathedral and the Bank of England....
).

Fry died very unexpectedly due to a fall at his home. His death caused great sorrow among the members of the Bloomsbury Group

Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group was an England collectivity of friends and relatives who lived in or near London during the first half of the twentieth century....
, who loved him for his generosity and warmth. Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell was an England Painting and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf....
decorated his casket before he was buried at Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
, Vanessa's sister, novelist and a close friend of Roger as well, was entrusted with writing his biography, published in 1940.

Career

In the 1900s, Fry started to teach art history at the Slade School of Fine Art

Slade School of Fine Art

Slade School of Fine Art is the art school of University College London, UK.The school traces its roots back to 1868 when Felix Slade bequeathed funds to establish three Chairs in Fine Art, to be based at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and University College, London, where six studentships were endowed....
, University College London

University College London

University College London is a university institution and constituent college of the University of London based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom....
.

In 1906 Fry was appointed Curator of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile, New York City in New York City, USA....
in New York

New York

The State of New York is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States regions of the United States and is the nation's List of U.S....
. This was also the year in which he "discovered" the art of Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul C?zanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist Painting whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century....
, beginning the shift in his scholarly interests away from the Italian Old Masters and towards modern French art.

In 1910, Fry organised the exhibition Manet
Édouard Manet

?douard Manet , 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883, was a French Painting. One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from realism to Impressionism....
and the Post-Impressionists (a term which he coined) at the Grafton Galleries, London. Despite the derision with which the exhibition was met, Fry followed it up with the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. It was patronised by Lady Ottoline Morrell, with whom Fry had a fleeting romantic attachment.

In 1913 he founded the Omega Workshops

Omega Workshops

The Omega Workshops was a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury group and established in 1913. It was located at 33 Fitzroy Square in London....
, a design workshop based in London's Fitzroy Square

Fitzroy Square

Fitzroy Square is one of the Georgian squares in London and is the only one found in the central London area known as in Fitzrovia.The square, nearby Fitzroy Street and the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street have the family name of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, into whose ownership the land passed through his marriage....
, whose members included Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant

Duncan Grant

Slade Professor of Fine Art

The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the senior professorship of art at the universities of University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and University of London....
at Cambridge

Cambridge

The city status in the United Kingdom of Cambridge is a College town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies about 50 miles north of London....
, a position that Fry had much desired.

Works

Vision and Design (1920)
Transformations (1926)
Cézanne. A Study of His Development (1927)
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a France artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid, brilliant and original draftsmanship. As a drawing, printmaking, and Sculpture, but principally as a Painting, Matisse is one of the best-known artists of the 20th century....
(1930)
French Art (1932)
Reflections on British Painting (1934)

Roger Fry

Life

Career

Works

External links