Alfred Thompson Bricher

American, 1837-1908

Alfred Thompson Bricher was a leading 19th-century American painter celebrated for his marine landscapes and precise coastal scenes. Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and raised in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Bricher began his artistic career in Boston, where he likely studied while working in a dry goods store. By the late 1850s, he had established a studio and became part of a network of artists exploring the New England coastline. Influenced by William Stanley Haseltine and Charles Temple Dix, Bricher developed a style rooted in Luminism and the Hudson River School, marked by its serene light and natural detail.

Bricher traveled widely along the Atlantic coast, capturing the interplay of sea, sky, and atmosphere. In 1866, he journeyed along the Upper Mississippi in search of new subjects. He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, where he became an Associate in 1879, and was a member of the American Water Color Society. His works also reached a broad audience through chromolithographs published by L. Prang & Company.

Bricher settled in Staten Island in 1890, while maintaining a summer home in Southampton, Long Island. Though commercially successful in his lifetime, his reputation has grown in the decades since, with his work now held in major museum collections. Collectors are drawn to his tonal palette and enduring vision of America’s coastal beauty.