The Early Years. My blog today is all about a remarkable woman, not just for her art but for her amazing longevity, dying just a few months short of her th birthday. She is the American painter, Theresa Ferber Bernstein. Her father was a Jewish textile merchant and her mother was a woman of Central European culture and learning who was a talented pianist.
As a young child, Theresa loved to draw and paint and later, whilst at high school, received some art training. Bernstein graduated from the William D. Kelley School in Philadelphia in June , at the age of Snell, and Samuel Murray. Her interest in art grew as she got older and she would attend some lectures at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The students would be taken on painting trips by their tutors and one such outing with William Daingerfield in was a summer stay at Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where she painted the first of her jazz-inspired works, entitled Dance Hall.
She graduated from the Philadelphia School of Design for Women in Besides her art education Theresa travelled on two occasions with her mother to Europe, where they visited relatives and visited a number of art galleries. Here she was able to view works by European modernists. However, in , a breakthrough occurred for Theresa when the National Academy of Design chose her painting, Open-Air Show for its annual exhibition.
The work then went on to the Carnegie Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago, where it attracted the attention of English collector John Lane, who purchased it and became an enthusiastic supporter of Theresa. It had its own editorial staff, and the content was different from that of the English edition, although many articles from it were reprinted. One of her paintings exhibited at the Milch Galleries was Searchlights on the Hudson which she had completed in Theresa had remembered seeing the unusual and spectacular sight of the Hudson River being illuminated by searchlights as a method of detection of enemy boats and dirigibles.
Theresa, from an early age, was very observant. She could leave a room and once outside accurately describe what had been inside and could even sketch what she had seen. This excellent memory was of great help to her when she completed a painting in entitled Waiting Room β Employment Office.
