Active during the first half of the nineteenth century, Thomas Birch was one of the earliest and foremost marine painters in America. The son of the English engraver and miniature painter William Russell Birch (1775-1834), Thomas emigrated with his family to Philadelphia in 1794. He began his artistic career around 1798, assisting his father in the preparation of an album of engraved topographical views, The City of Philadelphia ... as It Appeared in 1800 (1800). Then he established an independent career as a portrait and miniature painter based in Philadelphia. Around 1806 he painted his first marine, and he began to advertise himself as a landscape painter by 1811. That year Birch participated in one of the earliest full-scale public exhibitions held in Philadelphia, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Society of Artists in the United States, by exhibiting twelve works, none of which was a portrait. This display was indicative of his prolific output and the active role he would play in a variety of early art organizations, such as the Philadelphia Artists’ Fund Society, throughout his career. Birch produced over five hundred paintings, including landscapes, snow scenes, harbor and river views, ship portraits, and marines. His finest work was in a dramatic vein: storm-tossed seas, shipwrecks, and naval encounters. He first gained a reputation for his depictions of the sea battles of the War of 1812, some of which were published as prints. His work in marine portraiture helped establish the tradition of this type of painting in American art. In the more dramatic seascapes he combined the accuracy of a topographical artist in the descriptions of the ships with a strong degree of romanticism, pitting man against the awesome forces of nature. Despite the variety of his output Birch seems to have rarely ventured far from Philadelphia in search of subject matter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Collection of Mrs. Joseph Garson, William Birch, "The Life of William Russell Birch, Enamel Painter, Written by Himself," c. 1829, manuscript (typed copies of varying completeness in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Historical Society, Library Company of Philadelphia, and New York Public Library) § William Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834; 3d ed., rev. and enl., New York: Benjamin Blom, 1965) 3: 25-26 § Doris Jean Creer, "Thomas Birch: A Study of the Condition of Painting and the Artist’s Position in Federal America," Master’s thesis, University of Delaware, 1958, with bibliography, catalogue of known works and prints after, appendixes about George Birch, William Birch, and members of early nineteenth-century Philadelphia art organizations § Philadelphia Maritime Museum, Thomas Birch, 1779-1851, Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat., 1966, with essay by William H. Gerdts, bibliography § John Wilmerding, A History of American Marine Painting (Salem, Mass., and Boston: Peabody Museum and Little, Brown, and Co., 1968), pp. 103-18; rev. ed., American Marine Painting (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), pp. 75-82.