Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry | |
---|---|
Born | Roger Eliot Fry 14 December 1866 St Pancras, London, England[1] |
Died | 9 September 1934 Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, London, England | (aged 67)
Education | Clifton College |
Alma mater | King's College, Cambridge |
Occupation(s) | Artist and art critic |
Known for | Member of the Bloomsbury Group |
Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and
Life
Born in London in 1866, the son of the judge
In 1896, he married the artist Helen Coombe and they subsequently had two children, Pamela and Julian. Helen soon became seriously mentally ill and in 1910 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. That same year, Fry met the artists Vanessa Bell and her husband Clive Bell, and it was through them that he was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa's sister, the author Virginia Woolf later wrote in her biography of Fry that "He had more knowledge and experience than the rest of us put together".
In 1911, Fry began an affair with Vanessa Bell, who was recovering from a miscarriage. Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband. They remained lifelong close friends, even though Fry'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 artists Nina Hamnett and Josette Coatmellec, Fry 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).
Fry died unexpectedly after a fall at his home in London. His death caused great sorrow among the members of the
Artistic style
As a painter Fry was experimental (his work included a few abstracts), but his best pictures were straightforward naturalistic
Career
In the 1900s, Fry started to teach art history at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
In 1903 Fry was involved in the foundation of The Burlington Magazine, the first scholarly periodical dedicated to art history in Britain. Fry was its co-editor between 1909 and 1919 (first with Lionel Cust, then with Cust and More Adey) but his influence on it continued until his death: Fry was on the consultative committee of The Burlington since its beginnings and when he left the editorship, following a dispute with Cust and Adey regarding the editorial policy on modern art, he was able to use his influence on the committee to choose the successor he considered appropriate, Robert Rattray Tatlock.[14] Fry wrote for The Burlington from 1903 until his death: he published over two hundred pieces on eclectic subjects – from children's drawings to bushman art. From the pages of The Burlington it is also possible to follow Fry's growing interest in Post-Impressionism.
Fry's later reputation as a critic rested upon essays he wrote on Post-Impressionist painters,[15] and his most important theoretical statement is considered to be An essay in Aesthetics,[16] one of a selection of Fry's writings on art extending over a period of twenty years published in 1920.[17] In "An essay in Aesthetics", Fry argues that the response felt from examining art comes from the form of an artwork; meaning that it is the use of line, mass, colour and overall design that invokes an emotional response. His greatest gift was the ability to perceive the elements that give an artist his significance.[18] Fry was also a born letter writer, able to communicate his observations on art or human beings to his friends and family.[19]
In 1906 Fry was appointed Curator of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This was also the year in which he "discovered" the art of Paul Cézanne, the year the artist died, beginning the shift in his scholarly interests away from the Italian Old Masters and towards modern French art.
In November 1910, Fry organised the exhibition 'Manet and the Post-Impressionists' (post-impressionism being a term which Fry coined
Fry had a house called Durbins near Guildford which included features of his own design. The house had flush toilets, central heating and dumb waiters. He employed Lottie Hope and Nellie Boxall (in 1912) as his young servants until 1916 when he could no longer maintain the house. Lottie and Nellie went to work for Leonard and Virginia Woolf on his recommendation.[23]
In 1913 he founded the
The London Artists' Association was set up in 1925 by
In September 1926 Fry wrote a definitive essay on
His works can be seen in
A blue plaque was unveiled in Fitzroy Square on 20 May 2010.[21]
Gallery
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Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1893)
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Edith Sitwell, (1915)
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Virginia Woolf, (1917)
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Edith Sitwell, (1918)
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The Breakfast Table (c.1918)
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Roger Fry, (1930–1934)
Books
- Art and Commerce (1926)
- Art History as an Academic Study (1933)
- The Artist and Psycho-Analysis (1924)
- Arts of Painting and Sculpture (1932)
- Vision and Design (1920)
- Transformations (1926)
- Cézanne. A Study of His Development (1927) [First published in French, « Le développement de Cézanne », 1926]
- Henri Matisse (1930)
- Characteristics of French Art (1932)
- Reflections on British Painting (1934)
- Giovanni Bellini (1899)
- Duncan Grant (1923)
- Flemish Art (1927)
- Last Lectures (1933)
- A Sampler of Castille (1923)
- Twelve Original Woodcuts (1921)
Translations:
- Some poems of Mallarme(1936)
See also
References
- ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006 - findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ISBN 9780199532940
- ISBN 978-0226266428
- ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p. 95: Bristol; J. W. Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April 1948
- ^ "Fry, Roger (FRY885RE)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Woolf, Virginia, Roger Fry: A Biography, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company; London: The Hogarth Press, 1940.
- ISBN 9780199532940
- ^ Portrait of Edward Carpenter, National Portrait Gallery, London
- ^ Letter to Lady Fry,22 January 1928
- ^ Technical Appreciation by an artist ,Roger Fry, A Biography by Virginia Woolf, Harcourt,Brace and Co, New York ,1940
- ^ Earp T. W. , critic of New Statesman – Retrospective Exhibition, Cooling Galleries, London, February 1931
- ^ Letter to Marie Mauron 20 June 1920
- ^ Letter to R. C. Trevelyan, 20 November 1903
- ^ Sutton (ed.), Letters of Roger Fry (1972) pp. 448, 452
- ^ Blunt, Anthony , Introduction Seurat, Phaidon Press, London, September 1965
- ISBN 9780486400877
- ^ Fry, Roger Preface to Vision and design Chatto and Windus, London , 1920
- ISBN 0701115998
- ISBN 0701115998
- ^ Tate. "Post-impressionism – Art Term". Tate. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
- ^ a b "Roger Fry | Artist | Blue Plaques". English Heritage. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
- ^ MacCarthy, Desmond, "Desmond MacCarthy: The Post-Impressionist Exhibition of 1910", The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary, University of Toronto Press, 1995; Print. Rev ed.
- required.)
- ^ a b "Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19". courtauld.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ Tate. "Rebel Art Centre – Art Term". Tate. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "The 20th Century". The Courtauld Institute of Art. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "Bloomsbury Art & Design". The Courtauld Institute of Art. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19". courtauld.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "London Artists' Association | Artist Biographies". www.artbiogs.co.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "Courtauld History". courtauld.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "Collecting for Cambridge | The Fitzwilliam Museum". www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "The Warburg and Courtauld Institutes". The Burlington Magazine. 132 (1048 July 1990).
- ^ Seurat, Phaidon Press, London , 1965
- ^ Letter to Marie Mauron 12 November 1920
- ^ Sutton, Denys, Biographical Notes, Letters of Roger Fry, Chatto and Windus, London 1972.
- ^ "Self-Portrait by Roger Fry". Art Fund. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "A&A | Self-Portrait". www.artandarchitecture.org.uk. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "The Courtauld Collection" (PDF).
- ^ "Courtauld Institute Galleries | museum, London, United Kingdom". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ "Who made the Conway Library?". Digital Media. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 14 April 2021.
- ^ Wikidata Q106839642.
Sources
- ISBN 0-15-678520-X
- ISBN 0-7011-1599-8
- ISBN 0-520-04126-7
- David Boyd Haycock. "A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War" (2009)
- Christopher Reed, A Roger Fry Reader (1996) ISBN 0-226-26642-7
- Gal, Michalle. Aestheticism: Deep Formalism and the Emergence of Modernist Aesthetics. Peter Lang AG International Academic Publishers, 2015 ISBN 978-3-0351-9992-5
External links
- 112 artworks by or after Roger Fry at the Art UK site
- Roger Fry at artcyclopedia.com
- Roger Fry at Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition)
- Roger Fry' s biography in the Burlington Magazine
- Roger Fry - Vision and design ,Chatto and Windus, London 1920
- "Post-Impressionism", Roger Fry's lecture on the closing of the "Manet and the Post-Impressionists" exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, as published in The Fortnightly Review
- "Roger Fry, Walter Sickert and Post-Impressionism at the Grafton Galleries", a reflection by Prof. Marnin Young on the 1910-1911 exhibition