Roger Elliot Fry was born 14 December 1866 in Highgate, London. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the secret society the ‘Cambridge Apostles’. Although studying Natural Science, Fry had an interest in art; he visited Paris and Italy where he attended the Academie Julien in Paris. In Paris he was exposed to the contemporary French painters. After returning he concentrated on painting landscapes and with his growing interest in the formal elements of painting and a desire to develop his own painting, he decided to study the old masters.

‘It was an innate desire for this aspect of art which drove me to study the Old Masters and, in particular, those of the Italian Renaissance, in the hope of discovering from them the secret of that architectonic idea which I missed so badly in the work of my contemporaries.’

Fry became acquainted with the artist’s Vanessa & Clive Bell and was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, where he became a member, along with Duncan Grant and Nina Hamnett.

During the early 1900s Fry became influenced by the works of Paul Cezanne and other Post-Impressionists, moving away from his interest in the Old Masters. In 1913 Fry founded the Omega Workshops. His aim was to introduce the fresh sense of design, colour and proportion inspired by Post-Impressionism.

Fry started writing for the Burlington Magazine in 1903 and continued to be a frequent writer until his death. Fry died very unexpectedly after fall at home on 9 September 1934.