Anna Mary Richards Brewster (1870-1952) was the daughter of the great landscape and seascape painter William Trost Richards (1833-1905). Historically her father’s reputation eclipsed her own but Anna was an accomplished artist in her own right.
“Brewster exhibited at the National Academy of Design when she was just 14 years old,” says Megan Bongiovanni, research associate at Hawthorne Fine Art. “At the age of 20, Brewster received the academy’s Dodge Prize for ‘best picture by a woman.’ As a young woman, Brewster moved to England, established an art studio and spent nine years pursuing her artistic career.”
Anna Mary Richards Brewster (1870-1952), A Wharf at Whitby, ca. 1899. Oil on canvas, 13¼ x 8¾ in. Estate of the artist.
After her marriage to William Tenney Brewster, the couple settled in Scarsdale, New York, where she founded the Scarsdale Art Association.
A new online exhibition presented by Hawthorne Fine Art features more than a dozen works in oil and watercolor by Brewster and Richards, and explores their unique relationship as parent and child, teacher and student, and, foremost, as talented painters with a shared profession.
The two artists traveled together on sketching tours throughout England and Europe. As with most artist’s children, Brewster’s initial style was tight and detailed, much like her father’s, but evolved into her own over time. She remained a lifeling student of her father.
Anna Mary Richards Brewster (1870-1952), A Church at Rapallo, Italy, ca. 1933. Oil on canvas, 7¾ x 5½ in., estate stamp on verso.
William Trost Richards (1833-1905), Country Lane [Oldmixon Farm, Chester County, PA], ca. 1886. Oil on panel, 10 x 20 in., signed lower left.
Among the work to be shown is Brewster’s Salisbury, England (ca. 1895-1900), an intimately scaled work in oil that captures in charming detail the lush greenery and historic stone archway found in the medieval city. The same loose brushwork and attention to architectural detail can be found in St. John’s College Cambridge England, circa 1900.
A vertical composition, Brewster’s A Wharf at Whitby, circa 1899, captures a bustling fishing pier in North Yorkshire. The artist visited the town while on a sketching tour of Northern England. The work was included in Sketches from the British Isles by Anna Richards Brewster posthumously published by the artist’s husband in 1954.
William Trost Richards (1833-1905), Seascape with Crashing Waves, 1889. Oil on canvas, 20 x 40 in., signed and dated lower right: 1889.
Anna Mary Richards Brewster (1870-1952), Salisbury, England, ca. 1895-1900. Oil on canvas mounted to Masonite, 47/8 x 67/8 in, estate stamp on verso.
In A Church at Rapallo, Italy, circa 1933, Brewster depicts a bell tower and red-tiled rooftops overlooking the Ligurian sea. A large-scale watercolor, Brewster’s Heather and Pine-Sussex, England, 1896, depicts a rolling hillside covered in pink heather while pine trees cast striking shadows in the foreground. Also included are several small watercolors by Brewster such as The English Lakeland, Derwentwater, and The Langdale Pike. Executed in 1925, the works capture the natural beauty of Northwest England’s Lake District. Brewster’s father, William Trost Richards is represented with Country Lane [Oldmixon Farm, Chester County, PA], circa 1886. The rural scene with its highly detailed foreground reveals the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites. A luminous and precisely executed work, Seascape with Crashing Waves, 1889, reveals Richard’s close and careful study of nature.
Anna Mary Richards Brewster (1870-1952), The Weald, Cambridge England, 1899. Oil on board, 9 x 13 in, signed lower right.
The artists shared a strength in draftsmanship and composition as well as an exceptional attention to detail. Richards’s meticulousness is most apparent in the foreground of Country Lane and in the whitecaps and shell-scattered shore in Seascape with Crashing Waves. While Brewster’s work is more loosely painted than her father’s, one can see architectural details complete with gas lamp in St. John’s College, Cambridge, England and the minute details that make up the figures crowding the dock in Wharf at Whitby.
“Richards and Brewster shared not only a profession but a love and curiosity for the natural world,” says Bongiovanni. “This is highlighted in the luminous atmosphere of Richards’ seascape and in the varying cloud formations in Brewster’s watercolors.”
To view Daughter and Father, please visit the exhibitions page on the website.
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