Roger (Eliot) Fry - Early life and relationships, Career

Art critic, aesthetic philosopher, and painter, born in London, UK. He studied at Cambridge, and is mainly remembered for his support of the Postimpressionist movement in England. He propounded an extreme formal theory of aesthetics, seeing the aesthetic quality of a work of art solely in terms of its formal characteristics. He was director of the Museum of Art in New York City (1905–10). When he returned to London he organized a young artists' collective named the Omega Workshops (1913–19). He became professor of fine art at Cambridge in 1933.

Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English artist and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury group. 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".

Early life and relationships

Born in London, the son of the judge Edward Fry, he grew up in a wealthy Quaker family. Fry studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Apostles.

In 1896, he married the artist Helen Coombe and they subsequently had two children, Pamela and Julian. Fry took over the care of their children on his own.

In 1911, Fry began an affair with Vanessa Bell, who was then experiencing a difficult recovery from the birth of her son Quentin. Fry offered her the tenderness and care she felt was lacking from her husband, Clive Bell.

After short affairs with such artists as Nina Hammett and Josette Coatmellec, Roger too found happiness with Helen Maitland Anrep.

Fry died very unexpectedly due to a fall at his home.

Career

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 (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. He was later made the Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, a position Fry had much desired.