thumb|Thomas Cooper Gotch, self-portrait

thumb|The Child Enthroned, 1894

thumb|My Crown and Sceptre, 1892 (the sitter appears to be Phyllis, his daughter). This was his first work in his new style: two years later, he would rework it into the more powerful The Child Enthroned, his master work

Thomas Cooper Gotch or T. C. Gotch (1854–1931) was an English painter and book illustrator loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement; he was the brother of John Alfred Gotch, the architect.

Gotch studied art in London and Antwerp before he married and studied in Paris with his wife, Caroline, a fellow artist. Returning to Britain, they settled into the Newlyn art colony in Cornwall. He first made paintings of natural, pastoral settings before immersing himself in the romantic, Pre-Raphaelite romantic style for which he is best known. His daughter was often a model for the colourful depictions of young girls.

His works have been exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal College of Art and the Paris Salon.

Personal life

Thomas Gotch was born 10 December 1854 in the Mission House in Kettering, Northamptonshire. He was the fourth son born to Mary Ann Gale Gotch and Thomas Henry Gotch (born 1805), who was a shoe maker. art school in London and then at Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp in 1877 and 1878. Then in 1879 Gotch attended Slade School of Fine Art with Alphonse Legros in London. Gotch met his friend Henry Scott Tuke and his future wife Caroline Yates at Slade. After their marriage, Thomas and Caroline studied in Paris at Académie Julian and Académie Laurens in the early 1880s. It was in Paris that he adopted the plein-air approach of painting outdoors.

Career

In Newlyn he founded the Newlyn Industrial Classes, where the local youth could learn the arts & crafts. He also helped to set up the Newlyn Art Gallery, and served on its committee all his life. Among his friends in Newlyn was fellow artist Stanhope Forbes

In Newlyn, like other art colony artists, he used the plein-air approach for making paintings outdoors. He was also inspired by James McNeill Whistler's techniques for creating compositions and paintings.

During his life:

  • 1880 +: Royal Academy
  • 1888: An Artist of the Newlyn School., Manchester City Art Gallery
  • 1890: Dowdeswells
  • 1894: Nottingham
  • 1895: Opening exhibition and thereafter for the Newlyn Art Gallery.
  • 1896: Won a gold medal at the Berlin Exhibition.
  • 1902: Whitechapel
  • 1910: Newcastle retrospective show
  • He also exhibited at Paris Salon.

Following his death

  • 1958: Newlyn Society of Artists, Truro
  • 1979: Artists of the Newlyn School
  • 1987: Newlyn Art Gallery
  • 1987: Royal College of Art
  • 1992: Artists from Cornwall Exhibit, RWE, Bristol
  • 2001: T. C. Gotch: The Last of the Pre-Raphaelites, Royal Cornwall Museum Exhibition, Truro
  • 2005: Faces of Cornwall Exhibition at Penlee House, Penzance exhibited Mrs Sherwood Hunter.