Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Bricher, Alfred Thompson

BRICHER, Alfred Thompson, painter, b. in Portsmouth, N. H., 10 April, 1837. He was educated in Newburyport (Mass.) academy, and entered upon a mercantile career in Boston, devoting his leisure to drawing and painting without professional instruction. In a few years he attained noteworthy skill in making landscape studies from nature, and after 1858 devoted himself to the art as a profession. He opened a studio in Boston, and met with some success there, but in 1868 sought a wider field in New York. At the national academy of that year he exhibited “Mill-Stream at Newburyport.” Soon afterward he began to use water-colors in preference to oils, and in 1873 was chosen a member of the American water-color society. Since then he has devoted himself mainly to water-color painting of landscape, marine, and coastwise scenery. His coloring is brilliant, harmonious, and singularly transparent. His attention to detail bars him from the ranks of modern “impressionists,” but he has many admirers among lovers of natural scenery. Among his more notable drawings are “Sunset in October” (1869); “The Maiden's Rock, Lake Pepin” (1870); “Mt. Adams” (1871); “On the Esopus” (1874); “Off Halifax Harbor” (1875); “A Lift in the Fog” (1876); “St. Michael's Mount” (1877); and “What the Tide Left” (1878).