Otter Cliffs, Mt. Desert

Alfred Thompson Bricher grew up on the coast of Massachusetts in the town of Newburyport. First employed to produce illustrations for Boston lithographer Louis Prang and Company, by 1860 Bricher fully dedicated himself to becoming a professional artist. During the mid-1860s, not unlike his contemporaries Sanford Robinson Gifford, John Frederick Kensett and Thomas Worthington Whittredge, Bricher visited various settings in New England, the Hudson River Valley and the frontier along the upper Mississippi River. However, Bricher largely devoted his career to painting East Coast scenes. Sketching during the summer months, he subsequently returned to his New York studio to finish his canvases and expand on ideas gathered from his travels.

In Otter Cliffs, Mt. Desert, Bricher renders a compelling vista of waves crashing against Maine's rocky shore under a resplendent yet dramatic sky. In the far distance, white sails are just barely visible on the horizon, the only signs of a human presence amidst this awe-inspiring natural environment. Here, as in his best work, Bricher has perfected the techniques of portraying the nuances of sea and sky through his deft depiction of light and subtle brushwork. As embodied by the present work, a contemporary critic praised, "he was fascinated by the dialogue between patterns of clouds and shafts of light...He knew the coast intimately in all its moods." (as quoted in J.R. Brown, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1973, p. 12)