BRIDGMAN

bridgman, frederick arthur (1847- ), american artist, was born at tuskegee, alabama, on the 10th of november 1847. he began as a draughtsman in new york for the american bank note company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the brooklyn art school and at the national academy of design; but he went to paris in 1866 and became a pupil of j.l. gerome. paris then became his headquarters. a trip to egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the east that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, "the funeral procession of a mummy on the nile," in the paris salon (1877), bought by james gordon bennett, brought him the cross of the legion of honour. other paintings by him were "an american circus in normandy," "procession of the bull apis" (now in the corcoran art gallery, washington), and a "rumanian lady" (in the temple collection, philadelphia).