Alfred Thompson Bricher

Alfred Thompson Bricher was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts. According to historical records Bricher occasionally studied at the Lowell Institute in Boston and an academy in Newburyport, but it is common knowledge that he was primarily a self-taught artist. Early on in his career as a painter he traveled with fellow artists, Albert Bierstadt, Benjamin Champney, Gabriella Eddy, and William Morris Hunt to the White Mountain range, to the railroad town of North Conway, New Hampshire. In 1856 he established a Boston studio where he was exposed to the marine painters Martin Johnson Heade and Fitz Hugh Lane. It is from 1856 forward that Alfred Thompson Bricher made frequent “sketching” trips to Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island coasts. The passion that Bricher felt for his subject matter is exhibited in each painting that he completed. Our example, After the Storm, is a spectacular example.