Anna Richards Brewster

This innovative and comprehensive exhibition encompasses Anna Richards Brewster’s (1870 – 1952) works in oil, watercolor, gouache, and pen designs for book-illustration. It brings together paintings and prints from private and public collections to resurrect the reputation of an artist who was one of the best-known American woman artists at the turn of the century, and who at the age of 20, won the prestigious Dodge Prize at the National Academy of Design for the best picture by a woman artist in 1890.

Anna Richards Brewster was born into a prominent New England family, the daughter of well-known landscape and marine painter William Trost Richards and the poet writer Anna Matlack Richards. Unlike her father, who was devoted to the natural truth (i.e. realism), Anna was interested in the possibilities of human artifice and worked in varying styles, at times influenced by J.M.W. Turner, Childe Hassam and other contemporary artists working in the style of Impressionism, at other moments influenced by the paintings of Rembrandt or Edward Hopper.

Anna's artistic productions provide a fascinating view into her life. This is reflected in works showing a variety of locales once frequented by the artists: New York, where Anna traveled to in 1889 to find new mentors (John LaFarge and William Merrit Chase); Clovelly, England, where Anna went to pursue an independent artistic career; London, where Anna went to escape the isolation and quiet of Clovelly; and various other places such as Algeria, Greece, Spain and Italy seen with her husband William Tenny Brewster during his sabbaticals from teaching.

Organized by Susan Brewster and the Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Curated by Dr. Judith Kafka Maxwell.

More info available here.

Collection Type:

• Traveling Exhibitions

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