Judith E. Bernstock was born in New York City, where as a young child she was mesmerized by French Impressionist paintings in museums. First studying art at the Art Students League, she went on to attend the school then known as the High School of Music and Art, graduating second in her class with a major in art. Thereafter, she received an AB from Cornell University, majoring in art history, and subsequently earned both an MFA in Painting and a PhD in Art History from Columbia University.  Since 1983, she has been teaching art history at Cornell University. She has received several prestigious awards, including a Louis Comfort Tiffany Travel Grant, a Frances Sampson Fine Arts Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Louis Gebhard-Gourgaud Fellowship.

       Bernstock’s art constitutes a transformation of nature into a highly personal harmony of color and design.  Her work is informed by her knowledge of art history, especially by her appreciation of Cezanne and Van Gogh, but never limited by it. Like nature, art history serves as a point of departure for her intuitive interpretations of subjects.  Sometimes starting with photographs of places she has visited, and sometimes depending solely upon her memories, she always paints scenes that have overwhelmed her by their beauty. Many of her landscapes are inspired by her extensive travels in Western Europe, especially in France, where she lived for a year and now visits every summer.  Her barn paintings are based on farms she has seen in the northeastern U.S., and her leaf paintings emerge from her lifelong fascination with the colors and shapes of foliage. The leaf and barn paintings also reflect her increasing interest in other aspects of nineteenth-century art, particularly the primitive quality of American folk art, and the decorative tendency of the English Arts and Crafts movement.

       The images that Judith Bernstock creates in her original oil and acrylic paintings are superbly reproduced in limited editions of finely crafted giclee prints on canvas and archival watercolor paper, by master printmaker John Latimer, at EJ Fine Arts, in Rochester, NY.  After the giclee process, Bernstock “enhances” each print with acrylic paint to make it a unique work of art.  Artist proofs in sizes other than those listed here are also available upon request.

Entire site and contents ©2004 Judith E. Bernstock