The Messenger

Frederick Arthur Bridgman painted North Africa and the Middle East for European and American buyers: Algerian street scenes, courtyards, markets, women at leisure in shaded interiors and scenes from ancient Egypt, all in bright sunlight and saturated colour. Early on he worked in a tight, polished manner and was called the American Gérôme; later his brushwork grew looser and his colour brighter. Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1847, he studied in Brooklyn and New York before going to Paris in 1866 to train with Jean-Léon Gérôme. Between 1872 and 1874 he travelled through Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, making some 300 sketches in Cairo alone. His Funeral of a Mummy on the Nile was a success at the 1877 Salon and brought him the Légion d’honneur. He spent most of his life in France and died in Rouen in 1928. A Street in Algeria and By the City Gate are typical of his sunlit street scenes.