“T.C.” Gotch. Undersung Pre-Raphaelite.

The Lantern Parade. c. 1910.
Thomas Cooper Gotch
(1854–1931).
Photographer Unknown.
Tate archive.
“Mr. T. C. Gotch, 1895”. Photograph,Arthur Tanner. From Black and White, A Weekly Illustrated Record and Review, 21 Sept. 1895, p. 379.

A son of a Northamptonshire shoe factory owner, the English painter and book illustrator Thomas Cooper Gotch or “T.C.” Gotch (1854–1931) operated on the margins of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and is perhaps the movement’s most unsung exponent.

With his father’s help Gotch studied at all the very best schools. He studied art at Heatherley’s in London, then in Antwerp before returning to Britain to study atLondon’s Slade where he met Caroline Burland Yates, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Liverpool property owner.

After returning to Britain the couple settled into the Newlyn art colony in Cornwall and married there on 31 August 1881.Gotch and Caroline then studied in Paris together at the reknowned Académie Julian. Returning to Newlyn once more, they eventually built a family home there which they named Wheal Betsy.

In Newlyn, like the other colonists, Gotch adopted aFrench-influenced naturalist approach – thepainting plein-air outdoors style learn in Paris continued on the Cornish coast. Intially he made paintings of natural, pastoral settings. Dissatisfied with a distinct lack of success as a painter of Cornish life, in 1891 Gotch traveled to France, Switzerland, and Italy, wintering in Florence, soaking in the Renaissance art. Subsequently he changed his style. His new work was enigmatic, symbolic and free. He totally immersed himself now in the romantic, Pre-Raphaelite style for which he is now best known.

Gotch eventually became a recognized contributor to turn-of-the-century art by re-introducing into his work academic realist detail, tightly painted surfaces, and bright colours, along with a Symbolist subject matter focused primarily on children.

His only daughter, Phyllis Marion Gotch – a redhead like her father who became a singer & an author – was often a model for his colourful depictions of young girls and featured in most of his most celebrated work.

Gotch was about style and emotion. He relied on overall atmospheric mood, painterly effects and symbolic/stylistic/allegorical reference, not simply tightly polished technical detail to create his dreamy aesthetic.

Study for ‘The Birthday Party’. c. 1930. Falmouth Art Gallery.
Study for ‘The Birthday Party’. Unknown date.
Lantern Walk. Unknown date.
The Sandbar. Unknown date.
The Child Enthroned. 1894.
Evening. Unknown date.
Death the Bride. 1894/5.
My crown and sceptre. 1891.
Hydrangeas. Unknown date.
Portrait of the Artist’s Wife. Watercolour. Unknown date.
Ruby. 1909.
A vision of angels. Unknown date.
Alleluia. 1896.
The Message. 1903.
A Golden Dream. 1893.
Harris Museum & Art Gallery.
La Reine Clothilde. Unknown date.
Destiny. 1885-1886.
The Awakening. c. 1898. Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives.
The Orchard. 1920. Alfred East Art Gallery.
The Flag. 1910. Alfred East Art Gallery.
Golden Youth. Unknown date.
The Tuke Collection, Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society.
The Exile : ‘Heavy is the price I paid for love’ 1929-1930.Alfred East Art Gallery.
The Mother Enthroned. Unknown date.
Museums Sheffield.
The Dawn of Womanhood. 1898.
They Come. Unknown date.
Innocence. Watercolour. c. 1904.

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