Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, Anna Brewster was the daughter of noted marine and landscape painter, William Trost Richards whose reputation eclipsed hers. However, she earned a prestigious reputation as an active professional artist for fifty-five years. Her early work reflected the tight detailing of her father's style, but as she learned to paint faster, her canvases became looser and looser in style, and many have a warm tonality and atmosphere.

She learned painting technique from her father and by age fourteen was exhibiting at the National Academy in New York City. In 1888, she studied at the Cowles Art School in Boston under Dennis Bunker and later studied in New York with John LaFarge and William Merritt Chase. S...