James Fry Kimmeridge Bay

Oil on canvas, monogrammed bottom right, inscription and artist label on stretcher

Image size: 12 x 24 inches (30.5 x 61 cm)

Original frame

Provenance

Collection of Mrs Fairchild, London

Fry was a dedicated painter of the landscapes and coast of his native Dorset, where he regularly returned to the rugged beauty of the cliffs and pools on the coastline for inspiration for his paintings. Friends called Fry ‘the last of the English Impressionists’, because of his fascination with the play of sunshine and reflections of water. When they complained to him that he charged too little for his pictures, he replied, ‘I charge what I think is right. I couldn’t live with myself if I charged more’.

Fry moved from London to the Isle of Purbeck and lived in Corfe Castle from 1954, with a studio on East Street. The painting is a view of Kimmeridge Bay, famous for its fossils. To the left of the frame the dark structure is the four story Clavell Folly built in 1830 in the Tuscan style on the Hen Cliff. During the 19th century, it was used as a coastguard lookout, who secured the stays of their flagpole to four Napoleonic cannons.

This iconic Dorset landmark features in works by Thomas Hardy and P.D. James. Eliza Bright Nichol, the daughter of a Kimmeridge coastguard, was the first serious love of Thomas Hardy, who used an illustration of the tower as the frontispiece of his ‘Wessex Poems’ (1898). Clavell Tower was also the inspiration for P.D. James’ 1975 novel ‘The Black Tower’, and the setting in the 1985 six-part TV adaptation of the novel.

One could be forgiven for crediting Fry with a noticeable degree of artistic license as regards the slope of the land falling away to the right of the tower. However, one must factor in that coastal erosion has nibbled away at Hen Cliff since Fry painted it, increasing the angle of descent to the sea. As this erosion threatened the integrity of the tower, in 2006 the owners, The Landmark Trust, had the tower moved 82ft (25mts) further inland.

James Fry

James Fry was a British artist who worked in pastel, oils and photography. He was born in London and later studied at Watford School of Art under Arthur Scott. During World War II Fry was a committed conscientious objector who worked in forestry alongside the German and Italian prisoners of War.

Fry was later employed as a retoucher on the magazine ‘Picture Post’ and also designed neck ties for Liberty. In 1954, disenchanted with commercial life in London, he moved to Corfe Castle, in Dorset, where he set up his studio. He lived here with his wife Ivy as a committed environmentalist, teetotal, living frugally eating a vegetarian diet, shunning television, the telephone and newspapers. Based in Corfe Castle he would travel around the Purbeck hills on his bicycle carrying a camera loaded with colour transparency film, which he would later project to complete a painting on canvas.

When Ivy died, seven years after James, a collection of nearly 7,400 slides taken in and around the Purbecks were found, 295 of those being donated to The Dorset County Museum by a family member. It still holds several of his paintings and in 1999 included him in the published series ‘Dorset Worthies’.

We are grateful to Ken Guest for his help in identifying the painting and artist’s history.