Roger Fry - Wikipedia Roger Fry From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search For other people named Roger Fry, see Roger Fry (disambiguation). This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Roger Eliot Fry 1928 self-portrait Born (1866-12-14)14 December 1866 St Pancras, London, England [1] Died 9 September 1934(1934-09-09) (aged 67) Royal Free Hospital, Hampstead, London, England Nationality British Education Clifton College Alma mater King’s College, Cambridge Occupation Artist and art critic Known for Member of the Bloomsbury Group Roger Eliot Fry (16 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism. He was the first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, and emphasised the formal properties of paintings over the "associated ideas" conjured in the viewer by their representational content. He was described by the art historian Kenneth Clark as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin ... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry".[2] The taste Fry influenced was primarily that of the Anglophone world, and his success lay largely in alerting an educated public to a compelling version of recent artistic developments of the Parisian avant-garde.[3] Contents 1 Life 2 Artistic style 3 Career 4 Gallery 5 Books 6 References 7 Sources 8 External links Life[edit] Born in London, the son of the judge Edward Fry, he grew up in a wealthy Quaker family in Highgate. His siblings include Joan Mary Fry and Margery Fry, who became principal of Somerville College, Oxford. Fry was educated at Clifton College[4] and King's College, Cambridge,[5] where he was a member of the Conversazione Society, alongside freethinking men who would shape the foundation of his interest in the arts, including John McTaggart and Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson. After taking a first in the Natural Science tripos, he went to Paris and then Italy to study art. Eventually he specialised in landscape painting. 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 Bloomsbury Group, who loved him for his generosity and warmth. Vanessa Bell decorated his casket before his ashes were placed in the vault of Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Virginia Woolf was entrusted with writing his biography,[6] published in 1940. Artistic style[edit] As a painter Fry was experimental (his work included a few abstracts), but his best pictures were straightforward naturalistic portraits,[7][8] although he did not pretend to be a professional portrait painter.[9] In his art he explored his own sensations and gradually his own personal visions and attitudes asserted themselves.[10] His work was considered to give pleasure, 'communicating the delight of unexpected beauty and which tempers the spectator's sense to a keener consciousness of its presence'.[11] Fry did not consider himself a great artist, "only a serious artist with some sensibility and taste".[12] He considered Cowdray Park his best painting: "the best thing, in a way that I have done, the most complete at any rate".[13] Career[edit] 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 (a term which he coined) at the Grafton Galleries, London. This exhibition was the first to prominently feature Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, and Van Gogh in England and brought their art to the public. Though the exhibition would eventually be widely celebrated, the sentiments at the time were much less favourable. This was due to the exhibition's selection of art that the public was unaccustomed to at the time. Fry was not immune to the backlash. Desmond MacCarthy, the secretary of the exhibition stated that "by introducing the works of Cézanne, Matisse, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Picasso to the British public, he smashed for a long time his reputation as an art critic. Kind people called him mad, and reminded others that his wife was in an asylum. The majority declared him to be a subverter of morals and art, and a blatant self-advertiser." Yet the foreignness of "post-impressionism" would inevitably disappear and eventually the exhibition would be regarded as a critical moment for art and culture.[20] Virginia Woolf later said, "On or about December 1910 human character changed", referring to the effect this exhibit had on the world. 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. English Heritage blue plaque for Fry and his Omega Studios at 33 Fitzroy Square, Fitzrovia, London Borough of Camden In 1913 he founded the Omega Workshops, a design workshop based in London's Fitzroy Square, whose members included Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. In 1933, he was appointed the Slade Professor at Cambridge, a position that Fry had much desired. In September 1926 Fry wrote a definitive essay on Seurat in The Dial.[21] Fry also spent ten years translating, "for his own pleasure",[22] the poems of the symbolist poet Stephane Mallarmé[23] Between 1929 and 1934, the BBC released a series of twelve broadcasts wherein Fry conveys his belief that art appreciation should begin with a sensibility to form as opposed to an inclination to praise art of high culture. Fry also argues that an African sculpture or a Chinese vase is just as deserving of study as a Greek sculpture. A blue plaque was unveiled in Fitzroy Square on 20 May 2010. His works can be seen in Tate Britain, the Ashmolean Museum, Leeds Art Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Manchester Art Gallery and Somerville College. Gallery[edit] Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1893) Edward Carpenter (1894) River with Poplars (ca. 1912) Edith Sitwell, (1915) Virginia Woolf, (1917) Edith Sitwell, (1918) Roger Fry, (1930–1934) Books[edit] 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) 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) References[edit] ^ "Search Results for England & Wales Births 1837-2006 - findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 9 April 2018. ^ Chilvers. Ian , "Fry, Roger." Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Oxford, 1990, ISBN 9780199532940 ^ Reed, Christopher, Introduction,' A Roger Fry Reader' University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1996 ISBN 978-0226266428 ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p95: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948 ^ "Fry, Roger (FRY885RE)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. ^ Wolf,Virginia, Roger Fry, A Biography, Harcourt Publishers, London, 1976 ISBN 015678520X ^ Chilvers, Ian, Dictionary of Art and Artists, Oxford University Press, 1990 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 Wolf, 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 ^ Bullen, J. B., Introduction Vision and Design by Roger Fry, Dover Paperbacks ,1998 ISBN 9780486400877 ^ Fry, Roger Preface to Vision and design Chatto and Windus, London , 1920 ^ Sutton, Denys, Introduction Letters of Roger Fry Chatto and Windus, London, 1972 ISBN 0701115998 ^ Sutton Denys, Preface to Letters of Roger Fry, Chatto and Windus, London 1972 ISBN 0701115998 ^ 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. ^ 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. Sources[edit] Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry: A Biography (1940) ISBN 0-15-678520-X Denys Sutton, Letters of Roger Fry (1972) ISBN 0-7011-1599-8 Frances Spalding, Roger Fry: Art and Life, University of California Press, (1980) 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[edit] Wikiquote has quotations related to: Roger Fry 112 paintings by or after Roger Fry at the Art UK site Wikimedia Commons has media related to Roger Fry. 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 v t e Aesthetics topics Philosophers Abhinavagupta Theodor W. Adorno Leon Battista Alberti Thomas Aquinas Hans Urs von Balthasar Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Clive Bell Bernard Bosanquet Edward Bullough R. G. Collingwood Ananda Coomaraswamy Arthur Danto John Dewey Denis Diderot Hubert Dreyfus Curt John Ducasse Thierry de Duve Roger Fry Nelson Goodman Clement Greenberg Georg Hegel Martin Heidegger David Hume Immanuel Kant Paul Klee Susanne Langer Theodor Lipps György Lukács Jean-François Lyotard Joseph Margolis Jacques Maritain Thomas Munro Friedrich Nietzsche José Ortega y Gasset Dewitt H. Parker Stephen Pepper David Prall Jacques Rancière Ayn Rand Louis Lavelle George Lansing Raymond I. A. Richards George Santayana Friedrich Schiller Arthur Schopenhauer Roger Scruton Irving Singer Rabindranath Tagore Giorgio Vasari Morris Weitz Johann Joachim Winckelmann Richard Wollheim more... Theories Classicism Evolutionary aesthetics Historicism Modernism New Classical Postmodernism Psychoanalytic theory Romanticism Symbolism more... Concepts Aesthetic emotions Aesthetic interpretation Art manifesto Avant-garde Axiology Beauty Boredom Camp Comedy Creativity Cuteness Disgust Ecstasy Elegance Entertainment Eroticism Fun Gaze Harmony Judgement Kama Kitsch Life imitating art Magnificence Mimesis Perception Quality Rasa Recreation Reverence Style Sthayibhava Sublime Taste Work of art Related Aesthetics of music Applied aesthetics Architecture Art Arts criticism Feminist aesthetics Gastronomy History of painting Humour Japanese aesthetics Literary merit Mathematical beauty Mathematics and architecture Mathematics and art Medieval aesthetics Music theory Neuroesthetics Painting Patterns in nature Philosophy of design Philosophy of film Philosophy of music Poetry Sculpture Theory of painting Theory of art Tragedy Visual arts Index Outline Category  Philosophy portal Authority control AAG: 2032 AGSA: 2577 BIBSYS: 90188484 BNE: XX1023187 BNF: cb121862635 (data) CANTIC: a11766669 GND: 118703390 ISNI: 0000 0001 2129 7593 LCCN: n79072847 NDL: 00466797 NKC: skuk0002563 NLA: 35106239 NLI: 000049868 NTA: 069356769 PLWABN: 9810647856705606 RKD: 29684 SELIBR: 187628 SNAC: w60r9st3 SUDOC: 034901965 TePapa: 808 Trove: 828338 ULAN: 500005106 VcBA: 495/284774 VIAF: 41884144 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n79072847 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Fry&oldid=994604563" Categories: 1866 births 1934 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Bloomsbury Group English art critics 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters English Quakers Fry family People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art People educated at Clifton College Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art Academics of the University of Cambridge Hidden categories: Articles lacking in-text citations from April 2020 All articles lacking in-text citations EngvarB from August 2014 Use dmy dates from August 2014 Articles with hCards Commons category link is on Wikidata Wikipedia articles with AAG identifiers Wikipedia articles with AGSA identifiers Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with RKDartists identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with TePapa identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with ULAN identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages Català Dansk Deutsch Español Esperanto فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Italiano עברית Nederlands 日本語 Polski Português Русский Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 16 December 2020, at 16:06 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement