Charles March Gere was born in Gloucester, England on 5 June 1869. He attended Gloucester School of Arts and Crafts and Birmingham School of Art, where he was taught by Edward R. Taylor (1838-1911). He also visited Italy where he studied the technique of tempera painting. Gere subsequently worked as a painter, stained glass designer, art metalworker, embroiderer, illustrator and painter. He was associated for a period with William Morris and illustrated books for the Kelmscott Press, including the frontispiece to William Morris's News from Nowhere. He also worked with St John Hornby at the Ashendene Press. He contributed illustrations to The Quest (1894-96), and to The Yellow Book (1896).
Gere's early work was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement and later by the Arts and Crafts movement. He was instrumental in the revival of wood engraving. He taught at Birmingham School of Art and was a member of the Birmingham Group of Painters and Craftsmen.
Gere exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1890, 1910, 1911, and then virtually every year from 1924 to (posthumously) 1957. He also at exhibited at Agnew & Sons Gallery, Beaux Arts Gallery, Carfax & Co. Gallery, Chenil Gallery, Cooling & Sons Gallery, Fine Arts Society, Goupil Gallery, International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New English Art Club, New Gallery, Royal Miniature Society, Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery and Walkers Gallery in London; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Manchester City Art Gallery; Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; and at the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours in Edinburgh.
He was elected a member of the Art Workers Guild in 1906, the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) in 1906, the New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1911; an Associated of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (ARWS) in 1921; a full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (RWS) in 1927; an Associate of the Royal Academician (ARA) in 1933; a Royal Academician (RA) in 1939; and a Senior RA in 1945. He was also a member of the Cheltenham Group of Artists of which President in 1945.
His address was given as Sandhurst Villa, Leamington in 1890; and in Painswick, Stroud, Gloucestershire in from 1904 to 1956. He died in Gloucester on 3 August 1957.
Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)