Kathy M. Winter, lifelong artist, teacher, and former parish council president, has died at 91
She specialized in portraits, still life, and landscapes, and worked mostly in watercolors, pastels, oils, and acrylics.
Kathy M. Winter, 91, formerly of Philadelphia, lifelong artist, art and grade school teacher, author, and former council president at Our Mother of Consolation parish in Chestnut Hill, died Tuesday, June 9, of complications from pneumonia at Forbes Hospital in Monroeville, Pa.
Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Winter studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania. She specialized in portraits, still life, and landscapes, and worked mostly in watercolors, pastels, oils, and acrylics.
She painted portraits of celebrated Naval chaplain John F. Laboon and Chinatown icon T.T. Chang, and contributed to a collection called “Lost Dreams on Canvas” that featured portraits of innocent victims of violent crime in Philadelphia. “You get into a portrait like that,” Mrs. Winter told the Chestnut Hill Local in 2012, “and you’re into the person.”
She painted the statue of St. Gianna Beretta Molla for the Shrine of the Nativity of Our Lord in Warminster, and her painting of a restored statue of St. Gabriel for a church in New Orleans was featured in The Inquirer in 2007. She also designed stained glass windows for St. Bede’s Church in Holland and the chapel at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point.
Mrs. Winter studied Chinese brush painting with artist Phoebe Shih in Flourtown and showed her work at the Woodmere Art Gallery, the Conshohocken Art League, Daylesford Abbey, the Lutheran Theological Seminary, the Knickerbocker Exhibition in New York, and elsewhere. She also taught art classes at the Abington and Main Line Art Centers, the Conshohocken Art League, Our Mother of Consolation School, and elsewhere.
“The best thing,” she told the Chestnut Hill Local in 2012, “is that you don’t have to retire from making art.”
She met her husband, sculptor Joseph Winter, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1953, and they opened Winter Art Studio in their Chestnut Hill home in 1983. For several commissions, he created the sculpture, and she painted it.
“Since Joe was a sculptor and I’m a painter, we complemented each other very well,” Mrs. Winter told the Chestnut Hill Local in 2021. “If we had both been painters or both been sculptors, it would not have worked out so well. There would have been too much competition.”
In 2021, she self published a 48-page children’s book called How the Bears Got to the Park. It features illustrations by her husband, and the plot she wrote is based on his award-winning 1966 sculpture Family of Bears that is displayed at Three Bears Park at Third and Delancey Streets in Society Hill.
Mrs. Winter was a longtime member and onetime council president at Our Mother of Consolation Parish. She and her husband moved to Chestnut Hill from Southwest Philadelphia in 1962 so their children could attend the parish school, and she taught all subjects to third- and fourth-graders for a few years.
Parish members scheduled Mass intentions to honor her on June 28, July 5, and July 10. “She was very determined,” her daughter Genienne Navarro said. “She never let anything stand in her way and would move mountains to get something done.”
Kathleen Marie McKenna was born April 21, 1932. Her family moved to Virginia when she was young, returned to Philadelphia a few years later, and she graduated from West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Girls.
A perceptive nun recognized her artistic skills in high school and arranged for an admission interview with officials at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She met her husband there, and they married in 1956, and had daughters Kathy and Genienne, and a son, Joseph.
Her husband died in 2020, and she moved to the Pittsburgh area a few years ago to be close to family. Mrs. Winter kept in touch with former classmates at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for years and took additional art classes later at Temple University and Chestnut Hill College.
» READ MORE: Survivors give advice about mourning their loved ones, as told to The Inquirer’s obit writer
She played piano, doted on her family, and survived cancer in the 1970s. A longtime friend called her a “true, loving, nourishing, protective, guiding, steadfast Blessed Mother to me.”
Her family said in a tribute: “She will be remembered for her friendship, spiritual support, listening ear, humor, deep caring, generosity, and undaunted optimism.”
Her daughter Genienne said: “Her favorite saying was, ‘Nothing is impossible with God.’”
In addition to her children, Mrs. Winter is survived by six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and other relatives. A sister died earlier.
» READ MORE: Why did best-selling author Carol Saline email The Inquirer’s obit writer?
A memorial service is to be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at Our Mother of Consolation Church, 9 E. Chestnut Hill Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118.
Donations in her name may be made to Our Mother of Consolation Church and School, 9 E. Chestnut Hill Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118.
