Copy after a Self-Portrait by Cezanne
- Artist: Roger Eliot Fry
- Date: 1925
- Medium: oil on cardboard
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the “Copy after a Self‑Portrait by Cezanne” by Roger Eliot Fry. The canvas is a modest oil on cardboard, finished in 1925. It’s a direct tribute to Paul Cézanne, whose works first met Fry in 1906 and sparked his enthusiasm for modernism. From that encounter grew Fry’s lifelong obsession with what he called a “new pictorial beauty.”
In this piece, Fry literally copies Cézanne’s own self‑portrait, an act of homage that bridges past and present. The original was secured by the National Gallery in 1925 with a generous endowment from Samuel Courtauld, and Fry’s replica, made the same year, echoes that same moment of acquisition. The oil on cardboard gives the work a tactile immediacy, inviting viewers to notice the subtle brushwork that captures Cézanne’s characteristic solidity and Fry’s own interpretive lens.
The painting is a snapshot of early modernist dialogue—Cézanne’s structured form and Fry’s enthusiasm for renewal. It reminds us that influence can be as much a visual conversation as a written one, and that the act of copying can itself be a creative statement.
See it in person
Copy after a Self-Portrait by Cezanne hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
