THERESA BERNSTEIN (AMERICAN 1890-2002) Coney Island, Brooklyn, oil on canvas 76.2 x 101.6 cm (30 x 40 in.) signed lower right
LOT NOTES Possibly America’s longest lived artist, Theresa Bernstein passed away in 2002 at the age of 112, having actively painted and exhibited for over 80 years. Having studied her craft with such influential teachers as Daniel Garber and William Merritt Chase, and after several extended trips to Europe in 1905 and 1912, Bernstein returned to New York and became an inveterate painter of New York scenes. The painting presented here, depicting the boardwalk and amusement pier in Coney Island Brooklyn, a favorite subject of Bernstein’s, demonstrates her masterful command of color and form. This delightful urban realism combined with a modernist style, as in the best of the Ashcan School artists with whom Bernstein is so closely associated, is indicative of Bernstein’s profound legacy as an American 20th century painter.
