Stenzel, Franz

Dr. Franz Stenzel, a Portland, Oregon physician and one of the foremost authorities on early art of the Pacific Northwest, was born March 8, 1906 in Aberdeen, Washington. Two years later his family moved to Portland, where he would spend most of his life. He graduated from Bates College in 1933, and attended Harvard Medical School, studying internal medicine and specializing in cardiology. After working for nine years in Boston, he returned to Portland in 1946, where he entered private practice and was on the staff of Good Samaratin Hospital until his retirement in 1970. He also served as an instructor in cardiology at the University of Oregon Medical School, and became President of the Oregon Society of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Stenzel married Kathryn Marie Mathison in 1951 and the couple began collecting art of the American Northwest in 1955 after Dr. Stenzel was given a painting by a patient. While amassing a collection that eventually included approximately 2500 works of art, Dr. Stenzel became an authority on the early pictorial art of the Northwest, specializing in the period between 1800 and 1950. Research done while investigating sources for their collection evolved into a projected book on artists born before 1900 who worked in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, southern British Columbia, and southern Alberta. Though this book was never published, research for this book contributed to his studies of two prominent Northwest artists: Cleveland Rockwell, Scientist and Artist, 1837-1907 (Portland, Or.: Oregon Historical Society, 1972) and James Madison Alden, Yankee Artist of the Pacific Coast, 1854-1860 (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1975).

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