After their marriage (August 31st, 1881) in Newlyn, Gotch and Burland  travelled to Paris to study at Académie Julian and Académie Laurens where he developed his plein-air approach exemplified by ‘Mental Arithmetic’ (1883, pictured left bottom) of a girl and a Newlyn fisherman.

In 1887 Gotch and Burland settled in Newlyn, swiftly becoming two of the integral members of the Newlyn School of Art and where he assisted John Drew Mackenzie (July 22nd) in establishing the Newlyn Industrial Classes.

He also helped to set up the Newlyn Art Gallery, serving on its committee all his life and became close friends with Stanhope Forbes (November 18th) and Albert Chevallier Tayler (December 20th).

Whilst his early years work were of a pastoral, natural style he changed rapidly following another trip to Paris and then Florence (1891 – 1892) to painting in a Pre-Raphaelite genre.

His first such painting (1892) was ‘My Crown and Sceptre’ (bottom left) for which his daughter, Phyllis Marian Gotch, sat.   The combination of decorative Italian styles and symbolic figures, painted in a Renaissance style, brought him recognition and fame and resulted in regular exhibitions at the Royal Academy.  His first exhibition at the Royal Academy (1894) was ‘The Child Enthroned’ (bottom right), again with his daughter as the sitter but he also sat for other artists, including Elizabeth Forbes (December 29th).

Gotch exhibited across the world, winning a gold medal at the Berlin Exhibition (1896) with other notable exhibitions including those at the Tate (where he exhibited Alleluia, bottom middle), London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery (1902), Newcastle (1910) and Paris. Gotch died in 1931 and like Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes, he is buried in Sancreed Churchyard.

The Gotches were the grandparents of Deidre Patricia MacLellan who had an affair with the occultist Aleister Crowley and who gave birth to their son, Randall Gair, in 1937.