Bridge over the Allier

Roger Fry 1866–1934

T01781 Bridge over the Allier circa 1933

Not inscribed by the artist.
Oil on board, 12 x 16¿ (33 x 41).
Presented by Mrs Pamela Diamand, 1973.
Coll: Margery Fry, the artist’s sister; his daughter, Mrs Diamand.
Exh: The Minories, Colchester, March 1959 (49), as ‘The River Allier’.

Mrs Pamela Diamand recollects that T01781 was painted at the end of Fry’s life. A label shows it to have been among a large group of paintings by Fry which were at Thomas Agnew & Sons in 1933, though this particular work was neither included in Fry’s exhibition there in July of that year, nor sold. Fry was at Royat, Puy de Dôme, in June 1933.

The motif was identified in 1974 as a stretch of the Allier in the Department of Lozére, crossed by a bridge, between Langogne and Luc, that carries the Paris-Nimes railway line. Photographs of this view taken on the Gallery’s behalf confirm this identification.

Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1972–1974, London 1975.