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Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 - 9 September 1934) was an English artist and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury group.
Early life and relationships
Born in London, the son of the judge Edward Fry, he grew up in a wealthy Quaker family. Fry studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles. After taking a first in the Natural Science tripos, he went to Paris and then Italy to study art and eventually he specialised in landscape 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 on his own.
In 1911, Fry began an affair with Vanessa Bell, who was then experiencing a difficult recovery from the birth of her son Quentin. Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband, Clive Bell. They remained lifelong close friends, even though Roger's heart was broken in 1913 when Vanessa fell in love with Duncan Grant and decided to live permanently with him.
After short affairs with such artists as Nina Hammett 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 mosaic artist Boris Anrep).
Fry died very unexpectedly due to a fall at his home. His passing caused great sorrow among the members of the Bloomsbury Group, who loved him for his generosity and warmth. Vanessa Bell decorated his casket before he was buried at Kings College Chapel in Cambridge.
Career
In 1910, Fry organised an exhibition for the Post-Impressionists (a term he coined), the first in London. It was patronised by Lady Ottoline Morrell, with whom Fry had a fleeting romantic attachment. In 1913 he founded the Omega Workshops, a design workshop whose members included Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. He was later made the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, a position Fry had much desired.
Works
- Vision and Design (1920)
- Transformations (1926)
- Cézanne. A Study of His Development (1927)
- Henri Matisse (1930)
- French Art (1932)
- Reflections on British Painting (1934)
References
- Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry: a biography (1940) ISBN 015678520X
- Frances Spalding, Roger Fry, art and life (1980) ISBN 0520041267
External links
- The Papers of Roger Eliot Fry at King's College, Cambridge
- Roger Fry at artcyclopedia.com
1866 births | 1934 deaths | Alumni of King's College, Cambridge | Bloomsbury Group | Fry family | English painters | Old Cliftonians | Quakers
"Roger Fry"