Artist/Maker Theresa Bernstein (American, 1890 – 2002)

The Lunch Counter at S. Klein's in Union Square in the 1930's

ca. 1930-1939

Watercolor on paper

22 x 30 in.

Promised gift of Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, Scenes of New York City

IL2021.51.92

An enduring figure in the art worlds of the City and the summer art colony in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Bernstein was a painter, printmaker, teacher, poet, celebrated raconteur, and art activist whose pioneering career spanned nearly a century. Her biography merits review in order to understand these works, which join two paintings by the artist held by the N-YHS: New York Public Library Interior and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Reception. All four feature Bernstein’s characteristic throngs of people in public places and her free brushstrokes and vivacious palette. Born of Jewish parents who immigrated to the United States and settled in Pennsylvania, Theresa Ferber Bernstein-Meyerowitz studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, now the Moore College of Art and Design. Moving to New York in 1912, she enrolled at the Art Students League, where she studied with William Merritt Chase and became a fan of Robert Henri’s style of depicting the drama of everyday life. While not a formal member of the Ashcan School, she was close to many of its members and embraced a modern style to describe popular, sometimes earthy subject matter. She favored scenes with a cross-section of denizens from the five boroughs: among them suffrage parades (1912) and a series documenting the patriotic displays of World War I (1917–19). Among her artists’ associations, Bernstein joined the Philadelphia Ten, an influential group of female artists who exhibited from 1917 to 1945. Taking a studio space at the Holbein Studio (155 West Fifty-fifth Street), she attended the famous 1913 Armory Show, and discovered the exciting universe of modern art, in which she became a small but attractive comet. In 1919, Bernstein married the artist William Meyerowitz, who was a chess partner of Marcel Duchamp. For decades they lived in a loft-style studio apartment at 54 West Seventy-fourth Street, which remained her home until her death as a centenarian at the age of 111 years, seventeen days shy of her 112th birthday. Although Bernstein painted under her maiden name, the couple enjoyed a love match and shared passions for art, music, and Zionism, visiting Israel at least thirteen times. In 1930, the Baltimore Museum of Art held an exhibition honoring both artists’ work, as did the N-YHS in 1983 (“New York Themes: Paintings and Prints by William Meyerowitz and Theresa Bernstein”). Among Bernstein’s students was the sculptor Louise Nevelson (cat. 69). A critic writing in International Studio in 1919 gave Bernstein her first international recognition, albeit not without condescension, praising the “uncompromising offerings” of “this ambitious girl,” and her “democratic parks, unfashionable chapels, the five-cent subway.” He also delivered what he considered to be the ultimate compliment, calling her "a woman painter who paints like a man.” In the male-dominated art world of her time, Bernstein frequently signed her works, like the two Hirschfeld Collection promised gifts, with just her surname. She was a member of the Society of Independent Artists (which she cofounded with John Sloan), and exhibited extensively at the NAD, although she was not elected to membership, to her great disappointment. Her determination was legendary: when she broke her right hand, she painted with her left. When she could no longer hold a brush, she painted by squeezing paint from tubes, and she never lost her taste for a touching scene. On Valentine's Day late in her life, as she was pushed in her wheelchair past a store window where a couple were kissing as part of a promotion, Bernstein commanded, “Get my sketch pad.” Bernstein’s watercolor depicts a quotidian American scene of mid-twentieth-century New York: a department store lunch counter. In the racially integrated vignette, she focused on three seated women customers wearing modest hats and a child grabbing a quick meal at S. Klein. The flagship “popularly priced” City department store, also known as S. Klein On the Square, was located on Union Square East between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets in the long-lived Union Square Hotel (demolished in 2013). This accessible site, combined with the 1920s catch phrase “on the square” (meaning honest), made it a popular destination. Lunch counters—as opposed to cafés and tearooms in more upscale stores—were features in dime stores, drugstores, and more affordable department stores. Providing quick, low-cost, midday meals for shoppers on the run, they also encouraged the patronage of those with little money to spare. COMMUNITY VOICE Lunch counter dining was such a key part of the department store experience. Even with the energy of shopping all around you, it provided this moment of relaxation, of meeting up with friends. You can almost imagine a floor of shopping bags beneath this counter. The conversations. The smell of apple pie! And I love the hats—those planted atop the diners’ heads and those that seem to float in the distance. So much class and loveliness in such an everyday moment. Greg Young The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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