Barbara Winkelstein

Artist

I was raised in the home of an artist (my mother, Barbara) and an architect (my father, Peter). This meant many things, and there is much to share (eventually perhaps).

This post is about Barbara.

My mother was a curious, outgoing, loving, tough-minded, energetic, and endlessly creative person. A force of nature, a warm and radiating center of gravity, focal point of her huge extended family and community of friends, so much loved.

Barbara always asked you about you and yours before (if ever) speaking about herself. How are you, Matthew? How is Deb? Tell me about Sadie! This instinct to reach outward and draw others in was the secret in her art. A prolific and widely respected portrait painter, Barbara’s gift was the ability to capture a person’s likeness with warmth, perceptiveness, and specificity. Sometimes just a few gestural lines were enough to convey the essence of a person’s character. A kind of magic.

Barbara was a ‘maker’ before the term was popular. In our house every letter was written by hand, every birthday or thank you card homemade, the wrapping of every present an artwork in itself. (Deb is just like this too… no, I didn’t “mary my mother” but the connection and love between D and B was borne of the deep shared understanding of kindred spirits). Her studio was full of all shapes and textures of art papers and matte boards, easels, mason jars of brushes, charcoal pencils and pastels, paint tubes and palettes, splattered paint on the floor, and paintings of all shapes and sizes at various stages of completion. This, along with my father’s basement workshop full of wonders (more on that in another post), was where we grew up.

My sister, Anne, and brother, Will, and I are currently working on a (likely self-published) monograph on our mother’s art. Stay tuned for more on that as it develops.

Here is a link to Barbara’s huge body of non-commissioned art. (Stay tuned for more on her professional portraiture in the future).