Alfred Bricher’s work in part of the collections of more than 40 American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Alfred Bricher devoted most of his career to marine painting along the Eastern seaboard.

One of the last of the luminist artists, Bricher is best known for paintings and watercolors that capture the reflective and atmospheric effects of light on water. Some could be quite dramatic; others – like this watercolor, have a more subtle, yet no less striking quality.

Like many American painters of the 19th Century, Bricher’s work shows a reverence for nature and its effects.

Here, his confident brushstrokes trace water and land with equal force, capturing all the nuances of the coast in a rich texture. The artist's brilliance was in bringing all the visual elements of nature — in this case sea and shore — into an elegant harmony.

Bricher painted coastal and marine scenes from Long Island to Maine, finding a substantial following as a relatively young man. His popularity was mirrored by the respect of his peers: he exhibited at the National Academy every year from 1868 to 1890, and was elected an Associate of the Academy in 1879.