Roger Fry was born and died in London. Like all of the Bloomsbury group, he had a privileged upbringing. Son of the judge Edward Fry, his family were wealthy Quakers. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, went to Paris and then Italy to study art and eventually he specialised in landscape painting.

His marriage to the artist Helen Coombe produced two children but broke down when Helen became incurably insane and was committed to a mental asylum where she would spend the rest of der days. He began an short-lived affair with Vanessa Bell in 1911, and after that had a long and happy relationship with Helen Anrep.

His position in the history of British art is assured mainly for three reasons: his organisation of the first and second Post-Impressionist exhibitions in London (1910 and 1912); because of his founding of the Omega Workshops in 1913, which he started to help young artists by employing them in the field of of applied arts; and because his 1920 book Vision and Design influenced the aesthetic taste of entire generation.

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