Born April 10,1837, Portsmouth, NH, Bricher grew up in Newburyport, MA. Largely self-taught by careful study of Cole, Church and Durand, Bricher studied art at Lowell Institute, Boston in the 1850's. In the 1860s he followed his contemporaries to the White Mountains, and was active in Boston and Newburyport, MA until 1868 when he moved to New York.

Bricher was a significant second-generation Hudson River School landscapist and marine painter who is considered to be the last of the relevant American luminists. He is best known for his marine paintings depicting New England shorelines, in which crashing waves show the dynamic forces of nature.With ease and finesse he captured the natural ambiance around the ocean and its coasts and the artist’s reverence for the presence of what is before him is apparent. Keeping in step with the philosophical beliefs of his era, the artist was concerned with equating to canvas the resplendence of nature and the morality of his convictions. He executed his best work during the 1870s-80s when he spent many summers painting on the coasts of Massachusetts, Maine (Monhegan Island), and Rhode Island (1871-76), as well on Long Island, especially at Southampton.

Today A.T. Bricher is considered one of the finest marine painters of his era, and his work is in great demand because each of his canvases and watercolors show resplendently and with confident brushwork how nature looked during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.