Like many women of her age, Anna Richards Brewster benefitted from increasing opportunities for women in society but she was restrained by the male domination of the art world. As the daughter of the celebrated artist William Trost Richards (1833-1905), she was encouraged to pursue her interest in portraiture and landscape painting, and she found plein air painting to be a welcome relief from the dark academic paintings of the Victorian period.

Two exhibitions that include plein air paintings explore the ways artists capture the illusive appearance of bodies of water, one currently on view in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the other opening in Stockton, California in October, 2011.