ALFRED T. BRICHER Rocky Shore with Sailboats in the Distance.
Oil on board. 235x395 mm; 9 1/4x15 1/2 inches. Signed in brown ink, lower left recto. Ex-collection private collection, New York.
Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bricher (1837-1908) began his career as a businessman in Boston, Massachussetts. He studied at the Lowell Institute alongside fellow artists Albert Bierstadt and William Morris Hunt, and devoted himself to art as a profession after 1858. He primarily devoted himself to maritime paintings, with attention to watercolor scenes that explore the effect of light on both landscapes and seascapes. Following his move to New York in 1868, he became one of the last painters associated with the Hudson River School. Though little-known throughout his lifetime, Bricher's work posthumously gathered more attention, and by the 1980s he came to be credited as one of the greatest American maritime painters of the 19th century.
