Elaine Dine
Friend and Collector
I met Theresa Bernstein in the year 2000. Having purchased one of her most famous paintings, Armistice Day Parade, I decided I’d like to meet her. I picked up the phone since she was listed, and asked if I could come see her. Her apartment looked as if it hadn’t been touched in 70 or 80 years, and to tell you the truth I was scared to death to meet someone that old. According to her she was around 100, and I later learned that she had made herself at least six years younger. What was incredible to me was that she had all her faculties, was sharp as a tack, and even tried to hustle me into buying one of her most recent paintings! Theresa regaled me with stories of her life and summers in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Upon hearing of my painting, she told me she remembered the very day she painted it, that she had been at John Sloan’s apartment, and she even recalled what she ate for lunch. What a remarkable woman.