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 Thomas
Cooper Gotch was an original member the Newlyn colony of artists,
the group that made such an impact on the late Victorian art
world in England. From the mid 1880s, he was a leading figure
amongst the young artists who attempted to resist the hegemony
of London’s Royal Academy of Art, being a founder member
and secretary of the New English Art Club. His unwillingness
to accept restrictive art practices was also a motive in his
life-long commitment to getting the work of leading British
artists shown in the colonies and to enabling colonial artists
to exhibit in London. He was many years in advance of his
times in embracing an ideal of imperial unity in art and the
idea was revolutionary enough at the time for Tom’s
more protectionist fellow artists to make sure that he was
not elected to the Royal Academy. Although he became president
of the British Colonial Society of Artists in 1912, he was
never made an Academician.
Tom Gotch’s paintings are to be found today in public
collections in the UK and around the world. Although he was
a well known and a well-respected artist during his lifetime,
like many other artists of his era, he was forgotten after
his death. This was reversed in 1990 when his painting ‘The
Message’ was auctioned by Phillips and purchased by
the Tianan Chi-Mai Arts Foundation for a record £150,000.
The paintings of Thomas Cooper Gotch are now in demand by
both galleries and private collectors and the paucity of information
about his life and his work has become an embarrassment to
art dealers and art lecturers alike. During his lifetime,
Thomas Gotch was an unassuming man who preferred to work in
committees, behind the scenes and to keep out of the limelight.
Little has been published about this artist. Apart from the
three or four major articles written while he was alive and
short reference to him in the biographies and autobiographies
of other artists of his time, there are only brief and repetitive
biographical details in exhibition catalogues.
Filling the gap
The Cameo Series attempts to make a scholarly contribution
to published material about Thomas Cooper Gotch and his life
and times. It is hoped that the series fills a gap in the
literature. The cameos present original material from public
and private archives not previously published as well as original
commentary. The publications focus on different aspects of
the life and work of Thomas Cooper Gotch and the artists with
whom he associated as well as on the politics of the art establishment
during the period 1880 to 1931. They also contribute to an
understanding of the social history of the time against which
artists can be understood and appreciated better. It is hoped
that the cameos will be of use to art historians and art dealers
in identifying and interpreting the work of T.C.Gotch; that
they will provide information, reference material and sources
that help art students who wish to do original research themselves;
and that they are of interest to collectors of Newlyn School
and other early 20th century paintings.
The portrait on the front cover of the book is a little
known portrait of Caroline Gotch. The life-size oil painting
shows Carrie in a dark blue/navy dress with gold and white
cuffs and collar. She has a decorative rope around the waist
and wears a hat. Her left side and full face are towards the
viewer. Beneath a dado rail is a frieze decorated with mythological
figures. The painting is dated 1882 and was painted by Carrie’s
husband Thomas Cooper Gotch not long after their marriage
in Newlyn in 1881. At the time the picture was painted they
were in France, living at Brolles near Paris.
Thomas Cooper Gotch met and married Caroline Burland Yates
while they were both students. The exact date and place of
their first meeting is not recorded. It is possible that their
paths crossed at Heatherley’s Art School and that their
romance flourished during their days together at the Slade,
finally blossoming when they went to Paris, to study at Julien’s
Atelier in the 1880s.
A new piece of evidence that may throw light upon the events
is Tom’s story called ‘A Long Engagement’.
It is likely that this story was autobiographical and that
the events took place in the autumn of 1878, when Caroline
was at Heatherley’s and Tom was at the Slade. The names
of the main characters, Marian Thornely and David Haycroft,
are significant. ‘Marian’ was a favourite name,
given to Tom and Caroline’s daughter, Phyllis Marian
Gotch; Thornely is probably an affectionate description of
the prickly nature of the heroine, who in real life probably
led her hero a great dance before she agreed to marry. The
name Haycroft was particularly apt, describing Tom’s
mop of golden hair that Stanhope Forbes was to liken to ‘an
unmade bed’.
The story contains other evidence that it was autobiographical;
but it also raises a conundrum. If it was autobiographical
and Tom and Carrie formed an alliance in the autumn of 1878,
how did it happen that Tom subsequently had a flirtation with
Bo Santley and nearly became engaged to Maria Tuke?
The book sets out to solve this mystery through a careful
investigation of archival material. The trail starts from
a small notebook, listing members of a Shakespeare reading
club that Tom Gotch started for his friends from Heatherley’s.
In January 1879 Caroline is first in a list of club members
who have paid their 2/6d membership fee. By the summer of
1879, Tom with his friend Harry Tuke visited Newlyn where
Caroline Burland Yates was spending the summer sketching.
At the end of the year Carrie thanked Tom for a ‘jolly
little new years card’ and said ‘I have had none
I liked so much, it is just lovely.’
Tom was painting his ‘first picture’ called
‘Monseigneur Love’ which is reproduced in the
book. This was an allegorical painting depicting Cupid with
a quiver of arrows slung across his naked back and a young
woman who holds an arrow and clutches her breast. Cupid has
his back towards the viewer but the woman's face is clear
as she gazes at the young man with lambent eyes.
Was this a fragment of David Haycroft’s picture, described
in the story? David Haycroft’s visualisation of his
relationship with Marian Thornely was of ‘two figures
with locked hands and lambent eyes silently inter-vowing everything
that was good’. But the symbolism of the painting is
ambiguous. When Tom Gotch was painting this picture Harry
Tuke was romantically smitten with Edith Santley and there
was rumour of a romance between Tom Gotch and Bo Santley;
all four were members of the notorious ‘Pioneers’,
the club that was formed by a group of medical and art students
and was said to discuss ‘free love’. Given its
ambiguity, could the painting have fuelled Samuel Butler’s
anger at Tom’s possible role in promoting the romance
between Edith and Harry? If the picture depicts the romance
of Tom and Carrie, what explanation is there for Tom’s
subsequent erratic romantic behaviour? Why did his friends
think that he had committed himself to marriage with Maria
Tuke?
The book sets its detective story against a vivid picture
of life in the art schools of the time. It depicts life at
Heatherley’s Art School and at the Slade School of Art
towards the end of the 1880s. It contains details of the other
students with whom Tom and Caroline intermingled: Samuel Butler,
Charles Gogin, Jane Ross, Henry Scott Tuke and others. The
book also provides a comprehensive list of works that T. C.
Gotch produced at this time.
A Long Engagement 1878 – 1881
Pamela Lomax
Shears & Hogg Publications, 2002.
Price £5.95
ISBN 0-9540249-1-5
Publications available from:
Shears & Hogg Publications,
Wheal Betsy,
Newlyn, Cornwall, TR18 5AP, UK
Email:
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