Bernadine Stetzel Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1927 - d. 2016

Bernadine Stetzel, a self-taught artist whose primitive style of painting spoke of childhood memories and historical milestones, and whose work earned national recognition, died Friday at ProMedica Memorial Hospital in Fremont. She was 89.

She had a heart condition and her heart gave out, her daughter, Elizabeth Stetzel, said.

Mrs. Stetzel, who created more than 1,000 paintings — many depicting outdoor scenes from her years growing up in Tiffin, or from times past — was still painting two weeks before her death, her daughter said. The last painting she was working on but didn’t quite finish was a scene from her grandparents’ farm outside Tiffin.

“The thoughts just came to her head, she had so many great memories of her childhood, and that’s how she was able to express herself,” Ms. Stetzel said. “As a child growing up, all I can remember is my mom painting. She pretty much was painting on a daily basis from the ’70s and ’80s on.”

Known as the memory artist, Mrs. Stetzel painted in the realism style for years before — inspired by a reproduction of a Grandma Moses piece — she switched to primitive painting, using bright colors to paint scenes of ice skating, baking cookies, and walking in the snow.

“I couldn’t get what I wanted to say into words, so I decided to do it in painting and it came out in primitive style,” she told The Blade in a 1972 interview. “I use all pure colors right out of the tube. I don’t mix them. I tried mixing them and they looked muddy, except for pink and gray.

“I put on two coats. The first is boring. With the second coat I go into more detail and it comes to life.”

Connie Peiffer saw an article about Mrs. Stetzel’s work in The Blade in 2014 and fell in love with one of her paintings, Walking in the Snow, a self-portrait painting of the artist walking down a Tiffin street in winter. She visited Mrs. Stetzel to pick up a painting she agreed to donate to an American Red Cross event, and the two became good friends.

RELATED: 2014 profile of Mrs. Stetzel

“It is unbelievable to me that someone could do everything in life that she did, and with such grace and kindness, and humility, really,” Mrs. Peiffer said. “I can see movement in her art, and joy and happiness.”

Mrs. Peiffer and her husband, Norm, have several of Mrs. Stetzel’s pieces, including a re-creation of Walking in the Snow, and a wood hand-cut of a Ferris wheel the artist did as part of a series of woodcuts of the Seneca County Fair.

Mrs. Stetzel was born in 1927 to Burton and Clara Puffenberger on her father’s birthday, March 12. She knew from a young age that she either wanted to be an artist or architect, her daughter said, and was the first girl allowed into the drafting class at Tiffin Calvert High School, where she graduated in 1946.

She met her husband, Fred Stetzel, and after they married Feb. 5, 1949, they resided in Fremont. He died Jan. 9, 2012.

Mr. Stetzel fell in love immediately, but Bernadine was tougher to convince, their daughter said. Together they became a formidable team: He allowed her to pursue her personal interests, the daughter said.

To that end, it wasn’t just painting and woodcutting, but creativity in the form of sewing, baking, writing, politics, carpentry, and maintaining and remodeling their three-story Victorian home in Fremont that inspired her days.

Often, she would tell her children, “I can make that for you” when they saw something they wanted at a store or in a catalog, Ms. Stetzel said. She made clothes, a wooden wardrobe, and a canopy bed for her daughter’s dolls, as well as a wooden desk for her books.

“You’re a kid so you think everyone’s mom is like that, then you grow up and you can really appreciate it,” Ms. Stetzel said. “I always said it seemed like my mom had more than 24 hours in a day because I always wondered how she accomplished so much in one day.”