Fry, Roger

Revision as of 04:17, 28 August 2007

River with Poplars, circa 1912, Tate Gallery.

Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English artist and critic, and an influential member of the Bloomsbury group. 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. His art became influential in England, as it was some of the initial modern art to appear and gain popularity at this time. Roger Fry died on September 9, 1934, following a fall at his London home. His ashes were placed in the vault of Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, in a casket decorated by his long-time love and fellow Bloomsbury group member, Vanessa Bell.

Life

Roger Fry was born in London, UK, as the son of the judge, Edward Fry and homemaker. His parents belonged to a wealthy Quaker family, and sent him to study at King's College, Cambridge. During his time at Cambridge, Fry where he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles, and initially took an interest in the Natural Science 'tripos'. After becoming bored with this subject after he graduated from university, he decided to pursue an artistic career rather than continue his scientific studies, much to his family's chagrin.

In 1891, Fry traveled immensely, including trips to Italy and then Paris, to study study art, and eventually he specialised in landscape painting. He began to lecture on art, and also became a critic and author. He made his debut in art criticism in 1893, with a review of George Moore's book Modern Art for the Cambridge Review. He continued to lecture on art, and in 1894, he began lecturing on Italian art for the Cambridge Extension Movement.

In 1896, he married the artist Helen Coombe, which began a troubled begining to his personal life. During their marriage, Helen and Roger subsequently had two children, Pamela and Julian Fry. Although Helen suffered from mental illness throughout her life, she was committed to a mental institution in 1910, as her condition was worsening. Helen remained in this insitution until her death in 1937, leaving Roger Fry alone to tend to the children, Julian and Pamela.

He first met the artists Clive Bell and Vanessa Bell in 1910, when they invited him to lecture at Vanessa's Friday Club, which was the artistic equivalent of her brother, Thoby Stephen's literary soirees held on Thursday evenings. After this meeting, he became fast friends with the couple, particularly Vanessa, and was very involved in the founding and support of the Bloomsbury Group, which Vanessa and her sister, Virginia Woolf later started. This group focused on the importance of love, truth, and trust between friends, and infamously developed fluidity of romantic relationships within the group.

During a holiday to Turkey with the Bells in 1911, Fry began his love affair with Vanessa Bell. Vanessa was thought to be emotionally unstable and extremely vulnerable due to her experiencing a difficult recovery after the birth of her son, Quentin. Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband, Clive Bell, who was rumored to have numerous lovers himself. They remained life-long close friends, even living together in one of the Bloomsbury group main facilities. However, 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 various artists, such as the Omega artist, Nina Hammett and Josette Coatmellec, which ended in suicide tragically. Fianlly, Roger found happiness with Helen Maitland Anrep. Due to her first marriage ending in ruins as well, Roger and her had a special bond. She became his emotional anchor for the rest of his life, and completely supported his work and career. Although they never married, Roger and Helen lived together until he died.

Roger Fry died on September 9, 1934, following a fall at his London home very unexpectedly. His death caused great sorrow among the members of the Bloomsbury Group, who loved him for his generosity and warmth. His love, Vanessa Bell decorated his casket before he was buried at Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. Virginia Woolf, Vanessa's sister, novelist and a close friend of Roger as well, was entrusted with writing his biography, that was published in 1940.

Works

Roger Fry's first book on Giovanni Bellini, was published in 1899. He regularly contributed articles and criticism to the magazines Monthly Review and The Athenaeum, and in 1903, he was involved in the founding of Burlington Magazine, acting as a joint editor between 1909-18, and making it into one of the most important art magazines in Britain.

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, 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 and the Post-Impressionists at the Grafton Galleries, London. Despite the debate surrounding the exhibition, Fry followed it up with the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. This exhibition 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 his friends, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

Fry re-edited and updated a collection of his best articles and writings to produce his best known book, Vision and Design, which was published in 1920. As well as Western art, the book examined the use of form and aesthetics in ethnic art from Africa, America and Asia. It was a great success, reinforcing his position as England's leading art critic and it is still recognised as an extremely influential work in the development of modernist theory.

In his ideas, Fry emphasised the importance of 'form' over 'content', that is, how a work looks, rather than what it is about. He thought that artists should use colour and arrangement of forms rather than the subject to express their ideas and feelings, and was a firm believer that works of art should not be judged by how accurately they represent reality.

Legacy

"[H]e was not one of those characters who have, as we are told by their biographers, an instinctive love of their kind. His kind often amazed him and shocked him. His eyes, shining beneath the bushy black eyebrows, would fix themselves suddenly, and, looking as formidable as his father the Judge, he would pronounce judgment. 'You are bolstering people up in their natural beastliness', his words to Sir Charles Holmes who had given him, innocently, a book on fishing recall some awkward moments in his company. But if not gregarious he was sociable – 'incurably sociable' he called himself. His friends meant so much to him that he would give up the delights of wandering from village to village, from gallery to gallery, in order to be with them. Spring after spring he would exclaim, 'I feel very much inclined never to come back to England, just to wander on into Spain and Morocco...', but the sentence would end, 'if you wretches will live in London, then to London I must be dragged back'."^[1]

The first figure to raise public awareness of modern art in Britain, 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".

Bibliography

Vision and Design (1920)
Transformations (1926)
Cézanne. A Study of His Development (1927)
Henri Matisse (1930)
French Art (1932)
Reflections on British Painting (1934)

Notes

↑ Woolf, Virginia: Roger Fry. London, UK: Vintage (RAND), April 3, 2003.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Woolf, Virginia: Roger Fry. London, UK: Vintage (RAND), April 3, 2003. ISBN 0099442523

Roger Fry (Author), Christopher Reed (Editor): A Roger Fry Reader. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, July 15, 1996. ISBN 0226266427

Frances Spalding: Roger Fry, Art and Life: New York, New York: Black Dog Books, September 1999. ISBN 0520041267

External links

Roger Fry Art Encyclopedia Article Roger Fry Retrieved August 27, 2007.

Biographical Information Retrieved August 27, 2007.

Roger Fry Biography Retrieved August 27, 2007.

Persondata
NAME	Fry, Roger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Fry, Roger Eliot
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Art critic and painter
DATE OF BIRTH	14 December, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH	London, England, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH	9 September 1934
PLACE OF DEATH

Credits

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[1] Woolf, Virginia: Roger Fry. London, UK: Vintage (RAND), April 3, 2003.

[1]

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 During a holiday to Turkey with the Bells in 1911, Fry began his love affair with [[Vanessa Bell]].  Vanessa was thought to be emotionally unstable and extremely vulnerable due to her experiencing a difficult recovery after the birth of her son, [[Quentin Bell|Quentin]].  Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband, [[Clive Bell]], who was rumored to have numerous lovers himself.  They remained life-long close friends, even living together in one of the Bloomsbury group main facilities.  However, 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 mosaicist [[Boris Anrep]]).
+After short affairs with various artists, such as the Omega artist, [[Nina Hammett]] and [[Josette Coatmellec]], which ended in suicide tragically.  Fianlly, Roger found happiness with [[Helen Maitland Anrep]]. Due to her first marriage ending in ruins as well, Roger and her had a special bond.  She became his emotional anchor for the rest of his life, and completely supported his work and career.  Although they never married, Roger and Helen lived together until he died.
-In his personal life, it was not until 1924 after several short lived relationships (including affairs with Nina Hamnett, one of the Omega artists; and Josette Coatmellec, which ended tragically with her suicide), that he found happiness with Helen Anrep. Twenty years his junior, she left her husband and became a great support to Fry in his career, and lived with him until his death.
+Roger Fry died on September 9, 1934, following a fall at his London home very unexpectedly.  His death caused great sorrow among the members of the [[Bloomsbury Group]], who loved him for his generosity and warmth.  His love, [[Vanessa Bell]] decorated his casket before he was buried at [[Kings College Chapel]] in [[Cambridge]]. [[Virginia Woolf]], Vanessa's sister, novelist and a close friend of Roger as well, was entrusted with writing his biography, that was published in [[1940]].
-In 1933 Fry was offered the post of Slade Professor at Cambridge and began a series of lectures on the nature of art history that he was never to complete. The text for the lectures was published after his death in 1939 as Last Lectures. Fry died on 9 September 1934 following a fall at his London home. His ashes were placed in the vault of Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, in a casket decorated by Vanessa Bell.
-Fry died very unexpectedly due to a fall at his home.   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 he was buried at Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. [[Virginia Woolf]], Vanessa's sister, novelist and a close friend of Roger as well, was entrusted with writing his biography, that was published in [[1940]].
 ==Works==
-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]], beginning the shift in his scholarly interests away from the Italian Old Masters and towards modern French art. In [[1910]], Fry organised the exhibition ''[[Édouard Manet|Manet]] 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]], a design workshop whose members included Vanessa Bell and [[Duncan Grant]].
-In 1933, he was later made the [[Slade Professor of Fine Art#Slade Professors, Cambridge University|Slade Professor]] at [[Cambridge]], a position that Fry had much desired.
-His first book on ''Giovanni Bellini'', was published in 1899. He regularly contributed articles and criticism to the magazines ''Monthly Review'' and ''The Athenaeum'', and in 1903 he was involved in the founding of Burlington Magazine, acting as joint editor between 1909-18, and making it into one of the most important art magazines in Britain. From 1905 to 1910, he was the Curator of Paintings for the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
+Roger Fry's first book on ''Giovanni Bellini'', was published in 1899. He regularly contributed articles and criticism to the magazines ''Monthly Review'' and ''The Athenaeum'', and in 1903, he was involved in the founding of ''Burlington Magazine'', acting as a joint editor between 1909-18, and making it into one of the most important art magazines in Britain.
-Fry also organized the first [[Post-Impressionist]] exhibition and is also believed to have  coined the phrase for the [[Grafton Galleries]] in London, and later published books on Cézanne (1927), and Matisse (1930). In 1913, he organized the Omega Workshops, a collective that encouraged the involvement of young artists in the design and decoration of everyday functional objects. This remained active until 1919.
+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]], beginning the shift in his scholarly interests away from the Italian Old Masters and towards modern French art. In [[1910]], Fry organised the exhibition ''[[Édouard Manet|Manet]] and the Post-Impressionists'' at the Grafton Galleries, London.  Despite the debate surrounding the exhibition, Fry followed it up with the ''Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition'' in [[1912]]. This exhibition 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 his friends, [[Vanessa Bell]] and [[Duncan Grant]].
-Fry re-edited and updated a collection of his best articles and writings to produce his best known book, Vision and Design which was published in 1920. As well as Western art, the book examined the use of form and aesthetics in ethnic art from Africa, America and Asia. It was a great success, reinforcing his position as England's leading critic and it is still recognised as an extremely influential work in the development of modernist theory.
+Fry re-edited and updated a collection of his best articles and writings to produce his best known book, ''Vision and Design'', which was published in 1920. As well as Western art, the book examined the use of form and aesthetics in ethnic art from Africa, America and Asia. It was a great success, reinforcing his position as England's leading art critic and it is still recognised as an extremely influential work in the development of modernist theory.
-In his ideas, Fry emphasised the importance of 'form' over 'content': that is, how a work looks, rather than what it is about. He thought that artists should use colour and arrangement of forms rather than the subject to express their ideas and feelings, and that works of art should not be judged by how accurately they represent reality.
+In his ideas, Fry emphasised the importance of 'form' over 'content', that is, how a work looks, rather than what it is about. He thought that artists should use colour and arrangement of forms rather than the subject to express their ideas and feelings, and was a firm believer that works of art should not be judged by how accurately they represent reality.
 ==Legacy==