Still Life

The artist and critic Roger Fry was part of the Bloomsbury group of intellectuals based in London in the early decades of the twentieth century. Including such luminaries as Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and E. M. Forster, the Bloomsbury group was noted for its bohemian lifestyle, experiments with artistic form, and leftist? political leanings. An astute and still-influential critic, Fry helped to establish the reputations of the major Post-Impressionist painters Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). Fry embraced modernism in his criticism and experimented with abstraction in his own artistic practice, but he is best known for his naturalist works. He painted in a relatively traditional style, as seen in this small still life. Still, the radical influences of Cézanne are perceptible in the choice of scattered fruit as subject matter, the slightly off-kilter plane of the table, and the richly contrasting palette.