The ‘Super Bowl of Wildlife Art’ Is All About Ducks, and It Has Protected America’s Wetlands for 90 Years
Introduced in 1934, the federal duck stamp contest has raised more than $1.2 billion and protected at least 6.5 million acres across the nation. Now, an art exhibition at Connecticut’s Bruce Museum honors the competition’s history
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Amid growing fears over the destruction of America’s wetlands in 1934, the United States government launched a new, unusual program to help raise funds for conservation: the federal duck stamp.
The nationwide contest solicits works of art that depict various kinds of waterfowl and puts the winner on a stamp that duck hunters must buy each year. The initiative raises money for the purchase or lease of wetlands and wildlife habitat. To date, the historic program has brought in more than $1.2 billion and preserved more than 6.5 million acres across the nation—an area nearly the size of Massachusetts.
Now, as the duck stamp turns 90 years old, a new exhibition is shining the spotlight on how it bridges the gap between art and conservation. At the Bruce Museum, a venue in Greenwich, Connecticut, specifically dedicated to the convergence of science and art, the duck-centric designs are now on display.
The Bruce Museum’s gallery features many of the original works of art behind the annual stamps—the paintings, sketches and drawings that were eventually shrunk down to three square inches and printed. Many of the pieces were donated to the museum by Richie Prager, who has been collecting duck stamps and their related artworks since he was a teenager. The museum also incorporated hand-carved duck decoys, waterfowl taxidermy and interactive information about various species.
“Seeing the style of etchings, drawings and paintings evolve over time is fascinating,” says paleontologist Daniel Ksepka, the exhibition’s curator, to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. “Most important of all is the success of the program as a conservation vehicle—it almost certainly saved some species from extinction in the first few decades and continues to conserve millions of acres today.”
The duck stamp, also known as the migratory bird hunting and conservation stamp, was introduced under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Waterfowl hunters 16 and older are required to buy a new duck stamp every year, along with any necessary state permits and licenses. The stamps can be purchased by non-hunters, too, since they also guarantee entry to any National Wildlife Refuges that charge admission fees.
Today, buyers can choose between electronic or physical stamps. They cost $25, plus a $4 processing fee for the electronic versions. Roughly 98 percent of the proceeds are used to buy or lease land for the National Wildlife Refuge System, which “ensures there will be land for wildlife and humans that will be protected for generations to come,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 1989, the government also created a junior duck stamp program to help teach school-age children about conservation. Some states have also created their own duck stamp initiatives.
For the first few decades, the federal duck stamp was designed by wildlife artists invited to participate by the government. The very first was created by Jay Norwood Darling, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist also known as “Ding” who directed the U.S. Biological Survey, a precursor to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Darling’s first draft, completed on a piece of cardboard, has been lost to history—likely thrown out after printers made the first copy, reports the New York Times’ James Barron. But the new exhibition features a print of an etching of Darling’s design, which starred mallards. Then, in 1949, the government transformed the program into a contest that was open to any U.S. artists.
Every year, hundreds of artists submit designs in hopes that their work will be selected to appear on the next stamp. They don’t receive any prize money, but they do get major bragging rights in what has become known as the “the Super Bowl of wildlife art,” Ksepka tells the Greenwich Sentinel’s Anne W. Semmes.
They can also take pride in knowing their work will be seen by the roughly 1.5 million people who buy duck stamps every year. Between 900,000 to 1.1 million stamps are sold to hunters, while the rest are sold to conservationists and collectors, per the New York Times. Artists also retain the rights to their work, allowing them to sell prints, which are often lucrative.
This year’s contest was held at the Bruce Museum in mid-September. Adam Grimm, an artist based in South Dakota, won the competition for his acrylic portrait of two spectacled eiders against a backdrop of snowy mountains, reports WSHU’s Davis Dunavin. Grimm also won the contest in 1999 and 2013.
The artists’ submissions must follow a few guidelines. For instance, they should be physiologically accurate and well-composed. For a brief time, under a rule instated by the Trump administration, they also had to include a depiction of hunting—a specification that Last Week Tonight host John Oliver took the opportunity to lampoon.
And, perhaps most importantly, artists must also consider how the piece will look as a stamp—because judges don’t want something that is “going to look like a blob” when it’s shrunk down, Grimm tells the New York Times.
“You put your all into it, the design, the color, the pose of the birds,” he adds. “There is no bigger prize in the world of wildlife art.”
“Conservation Through the Arts: Celebrating the Federal Duck Stamp” is on view at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, through February 9, 2025.
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