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This portrait of Fry wearing a brown tweed jacket with red overcheck was painted by British society portraitist Edmund Nelson. Nelson is widely known for a portrait of his wife Ruth Swanton, sister of cricket writer and commentator E W Swanton. Nelson won the prize for the best portrait in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition just two years before this portrait of Fry was commissioned.
Fry is arguably one of the greatest ever sportsmen as a double international, playing both football and cricket for England. He played rugby for Oxford University and held the world long jump record for over twenty years. He played cricket for Oxford University, Hampshire, Sussex, London County and England, captaining his country in the 1912 Triangular Tournament against Australia and South Africa.
He was an accomplished classicist and writer, stood unsuccessfully for Parliament and acted as India’s representative at the League of Nations. It is commonly held that he declined the throne of Albania.
