Theresa Bernstein was born in Philadelphia in 1890 to cultured, middle-class immigrant parents. Showing artistic talent at an early age, Bernstein studied with Harriet Sartain, Elliott Daingerfield, Henry Snell, Daniel Garber and Samuel Murray at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. She graduated in 1911 with an award for general achievement. From Daniel Garber, her most memorable teacher, she carried forward a plein-air landscape painting with startling color contrasts and bright accents of light. After a enrollment at the Art Students League in New York, 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. Never a formal student of Robert Henri, she nonetheless embraced his philosophy of depicting the city's everyday drama.

In 1912, she settled in New York, and her early work was "Ashcan" School or Social Realist style. Bernstein gravitated to subjects where urban spaces fostered the intersection of citizens from all strata of New York society: scenes commonplace to the waterfront, streets, trolleys, and centers of public recreation ranging from theater lobbies to Coney Island. Her studio location near Bryant Park offered Bernstein the virtues of a distinctive setting in which to test her newly formed ideas about painting and a guaranteed cross section of New Yorkers seeking air, light, and company. She was also known for depictions of harbors, beaches, children, still-life and fish.

Bernstein was a member of many artists’ groups during her long lifetime, including the National Association of Women Artists, North Shore Art Association (last surviving Charter member) and the Philadelphia Ten. She was heavily prized and earned many one-woman shows throughout the country. Bernstein exhibited extensively with the National Academy of Design, the Society of Independent Artists (which she helped found with John Sloan) and was a charter member of the New York Society of Women Artists. Her husband was the artist William Meyerowitz, and together they summered in Gloucester, where she completed many of her beach scenes.

Theresa Bernstein died on February 12, 2002 at the age of 111.