Robert Douglas Fry (September 1872 – 9 July 1911) was an

English Australian English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry (wh ...

painter and illustrator, known for his paintings of animals, and especially horses.

Biography

Douglas Fry was born at

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England, son of Edward Fry, a corn and seed merchant, and his wife Annette née Ransome. His brother, Edward Ransome Fry, was also an artist, and his sister Constance Emily Fry married John Barlow Wood (1862–1949) a watercolour landscape artist. Douglas was educated at

Ipswich Grammar School Ipswich Grammar School is a historic, independent, non-denominational, day and boarding school for boys, located in Ipswich, a local government region of Brisbane on the Bremer River in South East Queensland, Australia. The school is situate ...

. Later he studied art at the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

in Paris, and in London where he did some illustrative work. In 1899 Douglas Fry came to Australia. He lived in Melbourne for some time, did some paintings of horses, and then went on to Sydney where he became a member of the Society of Artists. In 1908 his "Mountain King" was purchased for the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...

. He did illustrative work for '' The Lone Hand'' and was a frequent exhibitor with the Society of Artists. His reputation was steadily growing when he died from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

on 9 July 1911 in

Neutral Bay, New South Wales Neutral Bay is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Neutral Bay is around 1.5 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council. Neutral Bay takes ...

at the early age of 39. Fry was a keen hunter, described by a contemporary as a "tall, lean, monosyllbic Englishman who had an intensely conservative mind and a pronounced Oxford accent, and looked as if he had been poured into his riding pants and boots (which he always wore)". He was a keen horseman and is said to have taught Norman Lindsay to ride. Fry was regarded by his contemporaries as the best equine artist in Australia. Interested in the differing characteristics of horses, he made many studies of them before finishing each work. He was an excellent draughtsman and as a painter endeavoured to paint the thing exactly as he saw it, with a high degree of finish.

Notes and references

External links

R. Douglas Fry (1872-1911)
at artnet, examples of his work and auction prices 1872 births 1911 deaths Australian people of English descent Artists from Ipswich 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists Australian male painters British emigrants to Australia People educated at Ipswich Grammar School {{Australia-painter-stub