Background
Bricher, Alfred Thompson was born on April 10, 1837 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. Son of William and Elizabeth (Muir) Bricher.
Bricher, Alfred Thompson was born on April 10, 1837 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. Son of William and Elizabeth (Muir) Bricher.
He was educated in an academy at Newburyport, Massachusetts. When not working, he studied at the Lowell Institute. He also studied with Albert Bierstadt, William Morris Hunt, and others
He began his career as a businessman in Boston, Massachusetts. He opened a studio in Boston, and met with some success there. In the 1870s, he primarily did maritime themed paintings, with attention to watercolor paintings of landscape, marine, and coastwise scenery.
He often spent summers in Grand Manan, where he produced such notable works as Morning at Grand Manan (1878).
In 1879, Bricher was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. Bricher was one of the last painters of the famed By the end of his life, his style of painting that included landscapes and luminism fell out of style, with Modern Art becoming the premier artistic movement.
As his style of art faded, so did his fame. Over time Bricher"s artwork gathered more attention and by the 1980s he began to be credited as one of the nineteenth century"s greatest maritime painters.
A self-taught luminist, he explored the effects of light and how it reflected, refracted, and absorbed on landscapes and seascapes.
As a lover of maritime life and the sea he purchased a home in the 1890s close to the sea in the New Dorp section of Staten Island where he had views of the Atlantic Ocean and Raritan Bay. He lived and painted at the shore in New Dorp until his death, in Staten Island, New York, aged 71.
In 1868 he moved to New York City, and at the National Academy of Design that year he exhibited “Mill-Stream at Newburyport.” Soon afterward he began to use watercolors in preference to oils, and in 1873 was chosen a member of the American Watercolor Society.
Married Susie A. Wilder 1868.