Painter Thomas Alexander Harrison was noted as a painter of horizontal wave seascapes, nocturnal* beach scenes, bathing and clothed female figures, plein-aire pastoral landscapes and children on beaches. Harrison, whose brother Birge Harrison, also became a successful artist, was born and raised in Philadelphia, where the family lived in Germantown.

Much of his work was inspired by an intrinsic love of the sea and the vastness of nature, space and the sky he observed during his six year experience, 1872-1877, surveying the shores of New England, Florida and Pacific Coast for the United States Coastal and Geodetic Survey. Harrison's formal study of art was delayed by this employment, although in 1872, he had studied brief...