Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837-1908) | White Mountain Art & Artists

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Largely self-taught, Alfred Thompson Bricher was a businessman in Boston, MA, from 1851 until 1858, when he became a professional artist. He studied in his leisure hours at the Lowell Institute in Boston, and also attended an academy in Newburyport, MA.

In the 1860s, Bricher followed his contemporaries to the popular vistas of the White Mountains. There, particularly at North Conway, he studied and painted with Albert Bierstadt, William Morris Hunt, Gabriella Eddy, and Benjamin Champney. Bricher was a prolific artist and in 1860-61 alone, recorded 20 finished paintings. Attesting to his popularity as an artist, as well as the popularity of his subject matter, are numerous chromolithographs made after his work.

In 1868 Bricher moved from Boston to New York. In 1874 he became a member of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. He was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1879. During the 1870s, he devoted himself almost entirely to marine painting and spent much of his time exploring the coast of Maine, Narragansett Bay, and the Jersey Shore. His paintings were exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Art Club, the National Academy of Design, the Brooklyn Art Association, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Alfred Thompson Bricher died on September 10, 1908, in New Dorp, Staten Island, NY. On December 1, 1908, he was buried in the family lot at Hill Cemetery in Middleboro, MA

Obituary From The Dayton Herald
Dayton, OH / Monday, October 5, 1908 / Page 2 / Noted Artist Is Dead At Gotham

New York, Oct. 5.– Funeral arrangements are being made for Alfred Thompson Bricher, an artist who succumbed to apoplexy at his home in New Dorp, Staten Island, after an illness of two months. The services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock at his home. Mr. Bricher had won fame by his work in ocean sketches, his skill in color and light effects being notable.

He was born in Portsmouth, N.H., April 10, 1839. When he was twenty years old he opened a studio in Newburyport, Mass. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he established himself in Boston and quickly obtained a reputation by his pictures of autumn landscapes. In 1868 he settled in New York and turned his attention to marine painting. He was elected an associate member of the Academy in 1879, and a member of the Water Color Society in 1874. In 1882 Mr. Bricher built for himself a cottage and studio at Southampton, L.I., and later a permanent home at New Dorp, S.I.

Image of Alfred Thompson Bricher