This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Arthur Ernst Becher (Beecher), 1877-1960, was an illustrator of books
and magazines and fine-art painter known for rural New York landscapes
and historical scenes including Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. His
specialty was horses.
He was born in Freiburg, Germany and
trained in Munich and with Howard Pyle at the Brandywine
School. In 1959, six of his early paintings were purchased
by the Common Council of Milwaukee where Becher migrated with his
parents at age eight.
He took early training from F.W. Heine and
Robert Schade, and also painted at Jones Island, a fishing village near
Milwaukee. In 1902, he became a student of illustrator Howard
Pyle at Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania. Two years later he married
Frieda Knappe from Milwaukee, and the couple settled in Ardsley, New
York. In 1917, they added a 125 acre farm in Putnam County, New
York.
Becher became a magazine illustrator whose clients
included Scribner's, Leslie's, and Appleton's. In 1908, on
assignment he went to Europe and studied, likely as a private student,
in Germany with Otto Strutzel, known for landscape and animal painting.
In 1911, he exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy.
During
the 1930s, his illustration efforts turned to books from
magazines. He also painted in Arizona during 1931 and 1939.
The
Delaware Art Museum has several paintings by Becher in their
collection. His work was included in the 1996 exhibition N.C.
Wyeth and the Brandywine School American Illustrators from the Golden
Age of Illustration (1880-1960), at the American Illustrators Gallery /
Judy Goffman Fine Art.
Becher was a member of the Society of Illustrators.
Sources include:
Peter Merrill, German-American Artists in Early Milwaukee
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
http://www.artincontext.org/artist/b/arthur_beecher/index.htm
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