Bernstein/Avery: Discovery Made Visible
Cape Ann Collectors
By: CAC - Jun 30, 2026
Cape Ann Collectors
474 Washington Street
Gloucester Ma,01930
978-430-0414
Cape Ann Collectors is curating new work by Theresa Bernstein with reproductions from Milton Avery’s catalog sketchbooks. Our summer show, Bernstein/Avery: Discovery Made Visible, opening Saturday and Sunday, July 18-19, 1-5 p.m., is a dazzling collection documenting an intriguing record of an earlier era in Gloucester. Both artists’ courageous spirits, attracting reverent admirers and mentees, are on view.
Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002) and Milton Avery (1886-1965) ran in the same modernist circles, summering in the same art colonies and gathering at Bernstein and husband William Meyerowitz’s home in East Gloucester – steps away from Good Harbor Beach. All three modernists walked away from abstraction, capturing an intimacy where realism and abstraction intersect – observed reality.
Bernstein sketched scenes quickly, preferring to fill in details for later works with faces of friends and family. Sketches exploded as she pursued contemporary urban life, human activity and movement. Avery filled sketchbooks daily, further developing “eye-and-hand” coordination while maintaining the immediacy of his subject. His reliance on sketches, often making quick notations of color, made art an inseparable part of daily life. Sally Michel Avery, Milton’s wife, commented that summers were “devoted to works on paper.”
Bernstein and Avery were passionately driven by both the natural world and the human figure - all in full view on Cape Ann. Avery/Bernstein Sketchbooks: Discovery Made Visible, opening July 18-19, is running Saturdays through August 8. Stop by to see for yourself – discoveries made visible!