Thomas Cooper Gotch

The Maas Gallery, London, April 2002

Original canvas. There are faint stretcher bar marks along each edge and a small patch to the reverse corresponding to the horizon lower left. Some craquelure along the lower edge; otherwise the works appears in good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals some retouching corresponding to the above mentioned repaired patch. Also some retouching in the clouds and two marks along the centre of lower edge, visible to the naked eye. These may improve from being reduced. Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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Thomas Cooper Gotch’s career was broad and varied but always distinctive. After studying in Paris, he settled in Newlyn in 1887 and forged an early relationship with Henry Scott Tuke, where his work reveals the debt to Newlyn School realist, en plein air painting.  However in the 1890s Gotch developed a highly individualistic, imaginative symbolism that highlighted him as one of the most original painters of his generation. Incorporating allegorical subjects, decorative Italian textiles and the static order of the early Renaissance, he finally found recognition, with the Tate purchasing Alleluia in 1896.

Gotch sustained an interest in landscape painting throughout his career but pure landscapes such as the present example are rare. Although the location cannot be pinpointed, it likely portrays a south west view, and bears the freedom in brush and colour that characterised his work.