Hunter On Duck Stamp For First Time Third Win For Artist Who Comes From Painting Family

For the first time in the 65-year history of the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, a painting with a hunter in the design has won.

The hunter and his dog in their boat may be but a small part of the depiction of two greater scaup winging across a windswept waterway. But it is symbolic of how hunters have been in the background of the effort to conserve wetlands and waterfowl.

“I’ve been surprised to the reaction to the hunter in the painting,” said Jim Hautman of Plymouth, Minn., whose artwork won the competition for the 1999-2000 hunting-season stamp. “Of course, the hunters like it, but even a lot of nonhunters like the hunter in the painting.”

Hautman reigns from a sort of duck stamp dynasty. In the highly competitive world of wildlife painting, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls its duck stamp contest “The Olympics of Wildlife Art.”

That makes Jim Hautman the duck stamp’s answer to champion swimmer Mark Spitz.

Hautman, one of three duck-painting brothers from Plymouth, won the annual art competition for the third time. The youngest of three brothers, Hautman became the fourth artist to win the contest three times. His brothers each have won the competition once.

“Hunting and painting all go hand in hand to me. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t hunt… but no one hunts something they don’t love. You don’t go out and hunt something you hate,” he said. “Hunters already get it; they understand. And nonhunters may never get it. The real irony is that anti-hunters and hunters want the same thing better habitat and more animals.”

Waterfowl shooters are required to purchase the $15 stamp (it’s a hunting document, not a postage stamp) and carry it with their hunting license. Proceeds from the duck stamps and stamp souvenirs about $500 million since 1934 fund migratory bird conservation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has used the money to purchase more than 5 million acres of wetland habitat for waterfowl.

The stamp contest is the nation’s only federally sponsored art competition, according to organizers.

When duck hunters nationwide pay $15 for the mandatory stamps, they will purchase the artwork of a Hautman brother for the fifth time since 1990. Jim’s brother Bob won in 1997. And brother Joe won in 1992. Their mother, Dorothy Hautman, a wildlife artist, is their coach.

Hautman, 34, who entered the contest for the first time in 1985, worked on the duck up until the last minute. Entries had to be postmarked by Sept. 15. Hautman made it to the post office that day about 4 p.m.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began selling duck stamps to hunters for $1 in 1934. Back then, the service commissioned an artist to design the waterfowl to be engraved on the stamp. The agency held its first stamp contest in 1949.

Eventually, the stamps became popular as collectibles.

While there is no cash prize for the contest winner, the artist, who retains rights to the original image, can sell prints to art collectors and galleries for thousands of dollars.

“For me, it was a high point in my career,” said wildlife artist Robert Steiner, whose painting of a Barrow’s goldeneye duck graced the 1998-99 stamp. “For a lot of winners, it took them from being a starving artist to a star.”