Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1837, Alfred Thompson Bricher spent most of his youth in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Bricher went to Boston as a young teenager, where he initially worked in a dry-goods store, and where he may have attended art classes at the Lowell Institute. Considered primarily a self-taught artist, in 1858 Bricher established a studio in Newburyport. Moving his studio to Boston in 1859, Bricher followed many of his contemporaries to the favored locales of the Hudson River School artists, painting panoramic views of the White Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and the Hudson River Valley. Bricher's work steadily gained in popularity and by the mid 1860's was being reproduced by the Boston lithographic firm of L. Prang & Company.

In 1866, Bricher traveled to the Midwest, painting scenes of the upper Mississippi River Valley, the Lake Pipin area, and along the Minnesota River. After his marriage in Boston, in 1868, Bricher moved to New York City, where he began to exhibit at the National Academy of Design, and became very active with the Artists' Fund Society, The Brooklyn Art Association, and the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. Bricher continued to paint his Hudson River School subjects until about 1873, when he turned almost exclusively to panoramic seascapes of the New England and Long Island coast.

Along the Shore is an exquisite example of Bricher's distinctive and most notable style. It employs his signature broad horizontal format, and beautifully illustrates his mastery in capturing the quality of light and atmosphere of his subject. The present work also retains its original 6 ¾ inch wide gilt composition frame, a quintessential presentation for a Bricher of this period and caliber.

Memberships:
National Academy of Design, New York, New York, associate member, 1879
American Water Color Society, New York, New York
Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts

Exhibitions:
Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts after 1860
National Academy of Design, New York, New York, 1868-1908
Brooklyn Art Association, New York, New York 1870-1886, 1874, 1882, 1889, 1894
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 1888-89, 1896, 1907-08
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1890

Museums:
The Art Gallery, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Art Center, San Francisco, California
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, District of Columbia
The White House, Washington, District of Columbia
Museum of Fine Arts-St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Florida
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
IMA - Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
Ball State University Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
Museo Thyssen-Bonemisza, Madrid, Spain

Museums, continued:
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
George Walter Vincent Smith Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts
Museum of Fine Arts-Springfield, Springfield, Illinois
The Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center, Rockland, Maine
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri
The Hickory Museum of Art, Hickory, North Carolina
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
The Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah
Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, Wyoming
The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
Washington County Museum of Fine Art, Hagerstown, Maryland
Emerson Gallery at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York
Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

References:
American Art Analog, Chelsea House Publishers
E. Bénézit Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Editions Gründ
Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, E.A. Seemann Verlag Leipzig
Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, Sound View Press