Roger Fry

1866–1934

Roger Fry, ‘Essay in Abstract Design’ 1914 or 1915 — Essay in Abstract Design 1914 or 1915
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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Rooms

View by Appointment

Biography

Roger Eliot Fry (14 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". 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.

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Artworks

Roger Fry, ‘Essay in Abstract Design’ 1914 or 1915

Roger Fry Essay in Abstract Design

1914 or 1915

T01957

Roger Fry, ‘Still Life: Flowers’ c.1912

Roger Fry Still Life: Flowers

c.1912

T00101

Roger Fry, ‘River with Poplars’ c.1912

Roger Fry River with Poplars

c.1912

T01779

Roger Fry, ‘Still Life with T’ang Horse’ c.1919–21

Roger Fry Still Life with T’ang Horse

c.1919–21

T01780

Roger Fry, ‘Bridge over the Allier’ c.1933

Roger Fry Bridge over the Allier

c.1933

T01781

Roger Fry, ‘Landscape with Shepherd, near Villa Madama, Rome’ 1891

Roger Fry Landscape with Shepherd, near Villa Madama, Rome

1891

T01778

Roger Fry, ‘A Staircase / Narbonne’ 1930

Roger Fry A Staircase / Narbonne

1930

View by appointment P08171

Roger Fry, ‘Rock-cut Church, Aubeterre’ 1930

Roger Fry Rock-cut Church, Aubeterre

1930

View by appointment P08169

Artist as subject

William Roberts, ‘No! No! Cézanne never used it’ c.1934

William Roberts No! No! Cézanne never used it

c.1934

View by appointment T12724

Sir Max Beerbohm, ‘Annual Banquet: A Suggestion to the New English Art Club’ 1913

Sir Max Beerbohm Annual Banquet: A Suggestion to the New English Art Club

1913

View by appointment N04332

John Nash, recipient: Christine Nash, ‘Letter from John Nash to Christine Nash about Roger Fry, the Friday Club, and Paul Nash’ [3 April 1917]

John Nash, recipient: Christine Nash Letter from John Nash to Christine Nash about Roger Fry, the Friday Club, and Paul Nash

[3 April 1917]

TGA 8910/8/2/351

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands, ‘Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed London County Council, Westminster Technical Institute’ [c.December 1915]

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed London County Council, Westminster Technical Institute

[c.December 1915]

View by appointment TGA 9125/5/80

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands, ‘Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands’ [1915]

Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands

[1915]

View by appointment TGA 9125/5/85

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell, ‘Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell’ 1 August 1932

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell

1 August 1932

TGA 8010/5/1575

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell, ‘Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell’ [4 February 1921]

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell

[4 February 1921]

TGA 8010/5/1227

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell, ‘Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell’ 29 July 1932

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell

29 July 1932

TGA 8010/5/1570

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell, ‘Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell [Suffolk]’ [1916]

Duncan Grant, recipient: Vanessa Bell Letter from Bear [Duncan Grant] to Vanessa Bell [Suffolk]

[1916]

TGA 8010/5/1140

Film and audio

Duncan Grant, ‘Bathing’ 1911

Podcast

Walks of art: Bonnie Greer on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group

The writer and critic explores the friendships, work and designs behind this radical set of artists

Features

Paul Cézanne, ‘The Gardener Vallier’ c.1906

Art Term

Formalism

Formalism is the study of art based solely on an analysis of its form – the way it is made ...

David Bomberg, ‘In the Hold’ c.1913–14

Art Term

London Group

The London group was an exhibiting group founded in 1913 to organise modern art exhibitions in Britain

Roger Fry, ‘Still Life with T’ang Horse’ c.1919–21

Art Term

Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury is the name commonly used to identify a circle of intellectuals and artists who lived in Bloomsbury, near central ...

Wyndham Lewis, ‘Workshop’ c.1914–15

Art Term

Rebel Art Centre

The Rebel Art Centre was founded by Wyndham Lewis in London in March 1914 as a meeting place for artists ...

Black and white photograph of Henri Gaudier Brzeska carving hieratic head of Ezra Pound.

Tate Etc

Drawing the vortex: The Vorticists II

The British avant-garde group was formed in London in 1914 by the artist, writer and polemicist Wyndham Lewis. Their idea ...

Wassily Kandinsky Concerning the Spiritual in Art 1912 Cover of the original German version

Tate Etc

Every work of art is the child of its time, often it is the mother of our emotions": Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky’s ground-breaking theoretical publication Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912), with its emphasis on colours as “vibrations of the ...

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