Theresa Bernstein was a Polish-born American artist, painter, and writer
Background
Theresa Ferber Bernstein was born in Krakow, the only child of Jewish parents, Isidore and Anne (née Ferber) Bernstein, who emigrated to the United States. After enrolling at the Art Students League in New York City, where she took life and portraiture classes with William Merritt Chase, she traveled for a second time to Europe with her mother, her first trip abroad having been made in 1905.
Education
She studied with Harriet Sartain, Elliott Daingerfield, Henry Snell, Daniel Garber and others at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women now Moore College of Art & Design.
Career
She admired Robert Henri"s style of depicting the city"s everyday drama. In 1912 she settled in Manhattan. Her studio near Bryant Park and Times Square allowed her to paint a cross-section of New Yorkers.
She also painted harbors, beaches, fish, and still-life.
Her work includes the oil on canvas mural titled The First Orchestra in America in the Manheim, Pennsylvania post office, commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, and completed in 1938. Her husband was William Meyerowitz, also an artist.
Nyro and DeAngelis were supported in their musical educations by Bernstein and Meyerowitz. DeAngelis graduated from The Juilliard School of Music in the 1940s and enjoyed success as a songwriter, composer and teacher of piano and voice in New York and New Jersey.
DeAngelis lived and taught piano and voice in Atlanta, Georgia from March 2010 until her death from a stroke in 2011.
Bernstein died on February 13, 2002 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, several weeks before her 112th birthday and several years after suffering a stroke. According to an original certificate issued by the Board of Public Education of the First School District of Pennsylvania (currently in the possession of Bernstein"s great-nephew, Keith Carlson), Bernstein graduated from the William Doctorate. Kelley Elementary School in June 1907.
Membership
Bernstein was a member of the National Association of Women Artists and the North Shore Art Association.