Roger Fry: A Biography

A pleasant and caring biography of one friend written by another, where one of those friends was an artist and art critic who had an immense impact on the British art world in the early 20th century and the other is a famous writer of modernist novels. Virginia Woolf wrote this biography of her friend, Roger Fry, at the request of his family, from whom she received what seems like a truckload of letters, notes, and artwork. From this archival treasure trove, along with her own memories and those of other members of the Bloomsbury group (including her sister Vanessa Bell, an artist whose work is intricately tied up with Roger Fry), Woolf paints a warm and detailed portrait of her friend. While the book skips over Fry's brief love affair show more with her sister and only gives the briefest mention of his faults, the work as a whole feels like an honest portrait of this influential but (to me, at least), little known art world figure. While the trademark style of Woolf's novels is only occasionally glimpsed in the book, her strength as a reader and critic (as seen in The Common Reader books and her other literary essays) is at full force. This is the second-to-last book Woolf published in her lifetime and her only straightforward biography. Probably best for folks interested in the British art world or Virginia Woolf completists, but I found it to be quite charming. show less

Less than compelling. I put down this book several times to read other things. At times Woolf's account of Fry's life and career is oddly cursory; his unfortunate wife's death is reduced to a footnote. Her perspective produces a loving, but objective, account of Fry's character, however, and brings out his attractive spontaneity and love of the new. But overall you feel the omissions more than the content.