William Henry Gore (1857–1942) was an English painter and watercolourist of the late Victorian period to the early Twentieth Century. He is known for his rural landscapes of his native Berkshire and for his petit genre paintings of children and animals. Gore was in the tradition of late Victorian Romanticism and Naturalism that flourished in the period before the turn of the Twentieth Century but which quickly became unfashionable in the aftermath of the Great War and the social and political changes that followed.
Biography
W.H.Gore spent the majority of his commercial working life in Berkshire town of Newbury and in the surrounding countryside of his native Berkshire. He was born in September 1857 in Speenhamland, now a contiguous part of Newbury. He was the only son of three children to George Gore (1821-1864), a painter, plumber and decorator and Clara (known as Eliza) Gore (née Chubb). His Father’s death when W H Gore was seven years old witnessed the family moving to their uncle William Chubb’s house in Speenhamland. The family were staunch members of the local Congregation Church and Gore remained attached to the church until his death. He received his early art training in the Lambeth School of Art, from which he entered the Royal Academy schools in 1880 and during the next twenty years he exhibited twenty nine paintings but only three in the period 1900 - 1914.
Gore was a student at the Royal Academy for five years until 1885 coinciding with the start of the long Presidency of Frederic Leighton. At the Royal Academy he studied a mixture of drawing from Greek and Roman sculpture, anatomy and perspective painting using live models. One of Gore’s prime influences during this period was the realism of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and in particular John Everett Millais who succeeded briefly as President of the Royal Academy in 1886 (He died just three months after his election). Following Gore's academic days he returned to Berkshire and from 1898 he had moved back to his Mother’s house where he continued to live and work in a studio in the grounds until his death in 1942. He did not marry and chose to live a quiet, contemplative life centred on his boyhood church. Gore was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists from 1893 to 1913 exhibiting around ninety works during which he entered Stolen Kisses are the Sweetest in the St Louis Exhibition and Sympathy in the 1906 New Zealand Exhibition. Gore was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.
Gore remained an active painter until he turned 70 in 1927. He died on 5 May 1942
Landscape and rural scenes paintings
Many of W.H. Gore’s rural paintings display a nostalgic view of the nearby Kennet Valley and the surrounding Berkshire countryside. The influence of the French Barbizon School of realism and in particular the work of Jean-François Millet and François-Louis Français is evident in his work. The heyday of the Barbizon School was over by c 1870 but Gore incorporates some of the prominent features of the French school in the use of: colour, softness of form and in tonal qualities. Two works by Millet The Angelus a painting of two figures standing during a contemplative moment and The Gleaners the latter portraying the figures toiling in the landscape were well known to late Victorians and their symbolic content influenced Gore in his depiction of rural life. Paintings from the 1880s such as: Listed from the Guildhall collection in London and a watercolour In The Gloaming are intimate portrayals of Late Victorian romantic painting. Listed (sic) depicts two young lovers in sad reflection of the prospect of a young man joining up with his regiment. The ribbons in his cap refer to the custom of new recruits wearing their regimental colours to denote their willingness to be shot at for sixpence a day. The pathos of the idea expressed moved H. Stacy Marks, R.A., who was a member of the Council of the Royal Academy, to tears such was its effect on his sensibilities. Marks reaction provides an insight into the mind-set of many Victorians. In The Gloaming sees two lovers by the River Kennet in tender proximity to each other. These were themes that Gore returned to throughout his painting career.