Barbara Winkelstein was a prolific and widely respected portrait painter, known for capturing the essence of her subjects with warmth and insight. Her work was exhibited in galleries throughout San Francisco and is held in private collections around the world.
Barbara possessed a rare capacity to paint people and places with depth and honesty. Her vision extended beyond observation to include empathy, curiosity, and keen perceptiveness. This allowed her, often with only a few gestures, to convey the emotional truth of a place or the character of a person. Her work carries a quiet magic—an ability to reveal something essential in each subject—rooted in the way she lived in the world and connected deeply with others.
In her later years, she shared a studio at Pier 70 with a close-knit group of women artists who met regularly to paint portraits from live models, working in gouache, charcoal, graphite, oil stick, and watercolor. She also created numerous watercolors of the California landscapes she loved, including Stinson Beach, Tennessee Valley, and Echo Lake.
Born in 1929 in Coalinga, California, Barbara lived in Venezuela, Spain, and Colorado before earning a BA from the University of Oregon in 1950. She moved to San Francisco in 1956, where she met and married architect Peter Winkelstein. Together, they raised three children, Matthew, Will, and Anne, who remain dedicated to preserving their mother's extraordinary legacy. Barbara died in November 2011.
