Schooner Close-Hauled

Artist Alfred Thompson Bricher (American, 1837 - 1908)

Dateca. 1883

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 24 3/8 × 44 1/2 inches (61.91 × 113.03 cm)
Framed: 34 3/8 × 54 5/8 × 3 inches (87.31 × 138.75 × 7.62 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation

Object numberF81-34

SignedSigned lower right: atbricher.

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionSeascape with waves breaking along the shore in foreground which runs diagonally along lower edge of painting; in middle distance, center, a large 20masted schooner sailing parallel to shoreline, behind in distance, other sailing ships, with gulls flying overhead at center and right; overhead, a blue sky, clouded with an approaching storm.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Alfred Thompson Bricher, 1837–1908, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, September 12, 1973–January 13, 1974 (traveled), no. 57.

Gallery Label

Self-taught as an artist, Alfred Thompson Bricher emerged as one of the most accomplished and popular marine painters of the late 19th century. The Massachusetts native's marine imagery found a responsive market, partly in growing numbers of world-weary urbanites escaping to coastal environs for therapeutic relaxation.

Bricher's captivating Schooner Close-Hauled presents a group of vessels off a strip of unidentified coastline. Muscular waves and thick clouds create a dramatic stage for their graceful performance. Balanced and orderly, the composition lends a degree of permanence to a subject that is otherwise shifting and transitory. The setting likely refers to the southeastern shore of Long Island, where Bricher, along with countless other vacationers, spent time in the early 1880s.

Provenance

(Childs Gallery, Boston);

to Emily Clark Meyers, Stonington, Conn., 1966;

to (Vose Galleries, Boston, 1981);

to NAMA, 1981.

Published References

Jeffrey R. Brown, Alfred Thompson Bricher, 1837–1908, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1973), 28, 71.

Donald Hoffmann, “Luminist Oil Given to Gallery,” Kansas City Star, October 18, 1981, 8G.

Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 94.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections. 6^th ed. (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 237.

Margaret C. Conrads, ed. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: American Paintings to 1945 (Kansas City, Mo.: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 1: 160–164, 2: 75.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 167.

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