Junior duck stamp winner fouls out of competition
The initial winner of the 2013 Federal Junior Duck Stamp Contest has been disqualified after questions were raised about the originality of the art.
At the National Junior Duck Stamp Contest on April 19, a panel of five judges selected as the initial winner a painting of a single canvasback duck by Madison Grimm, 6, of Burbank, S.D.
According to a news release Friday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, soon after the winner was announced, parents and teachers raised concerns about the authenticity of the painting.
After investigating the complaints, the Federal Duck Stamp Office determined the painting had been transferred, a violation of the contest rules.
Instead, a painting of two snow geese by Peter Coulter 17, of Washington, Mo., was named the contest winner.
“On the advice of the Department of the Interior’s Solicitor’s Office, Grimm’s painting was disqualified, and Coulter was named the contest winner,” the news release said.
The winning art will appear on the 2013-14 Junior Duck Stamp, and Coulter will receive a $5,000 scholarship.
According to the website ArtsHeaven.com, it’s not uncommon to find transferred painting in the world of high art.
Transfers commonly are done by either hand copying a well-known work or using what’s called a canvas transfer, where oil paintings are reproduced by coating a lithograph of a painting with acrylic, “lifting” the coating off the original paper and then transferring it to a canvas surface.
A few brush strokes give the transfer the depth and dimension of the original.