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for Alfred Thompson Bricher
American, 1837 - 1908
Bricher grew up by the sea in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he attended school. His family then moved to Boston, and in 1851 Bricher obtained a job as a retail clerk. It is possible that he took drawing lessons at the Lowell Institute in Boston. By 1858 he had decided to embark on a professional artistic career. That summer, he went to Mount Desert Island, Maine, and met the artists Charles T. Dix and William S. Haseltine. Although largely self-taught, Bricher felt the influence of men such as Frederic E. Church, Asher B. Durand, and John F. Kensett.
Working in Boston, he early acquired a reputation for autumnal landscapes, and by the mid-1860s, he was painting scenes for chromolithographic reproduction by L. Prang and Company. Bricher made a summer trip to the upper Mississippi in 1866. In 1868 he moved to New York with his new wife, Susan A. Wildes, and in the same year exhibited for the first time in an Academy annual. He was a regular contributor to the annuals thereafter, missing only two years in the 1890s. Bricher also worked extensively in watercolor and was active in the American Society of Painters in Water Color.
In his mature work Bricher focused on marine subjects, and he is chiefly known for depictions of gray, sandy beaches with seaweed-covered boulders. With the exception of a period from about 1878 to 1884 when he was experimenting in figural work, Bricher continued painting coastal scenes for the rest of his life. He usually spent summers traveling up and down the Northeast coast. The resulting paintings were often compared to those of William Trost Richards.
Although he kept a studio in Manhattan until his death, Bricher built a home at New Dorp on Staten Island in 1890. He survived his first wife and in 1881 married Alice Robinson of Southampton, Long Island, where they kept a summer cottage.
Besides this portrait, the one documented association of De Luce and Bricher was an Erie Canal cruise they took in company with a group of artists in June 1880.
Working in Boston, he early acquired a reputation for autumnal landscapes, and by the mid-1860s, he was painting scenes for chromolithographic reproduction by L. Prang and Company. Bricher made a summer trip to the upper Mississippi in 1866. In 1868 he moved to New York with his new wife, Susan A. Wildes, and in the same year exhibited for the first time in an Academy annual. He was a regular contributor to the annuals thereafter, missing only two years in the 1890s. Bricher also worked extensively in watercolor and was active in the American Society of Painters in Water Color.
In his mature work Bricher focused on marine subjects, and he is chiefly known for depictions of gray, sandy beaches with seaweed-covered boulders. With the exception of a period from about 1878 to 1884 when he was experimenting in figural work, Bricher continued painting coastal scenes for the rest of his life. He usually spent summers traveling up and down the Northeast coast. The resulting paintings were often compared to those of William Trost Richards.
Although he kept a studio in Manhattan until his death, Bricher built a home at New Dorp on Staten Island in 1890. He survived his first wife and in 1881 married Alice Robinson of Southampton, Long Island, where they kept a summer cottage.
Besides this portrait, the one documented association of De Luce and Bricher was an Erie Canal cruise they took in company with a group of artists in June 1880.
