Gotch was an original member of the Newlyn colony of artists and a close friend of Tuke and Stanhope Forbes. He was strongly influenced by French painting- his technique was direct, creamy and confident. In 1886 he was a founder member of the New English Art Club. In the 1890s, when the fisherfolk subjects of the Newlyn painters became unfashionable, Gotch began to introduced a symbolist dimension to his figurative work. Portraits, particularly of children, at which he excelled, remained his bread and butter work.