Untitled (two ducks landing)

Object NamePrint

Artist / Maker Jay Norwood Darling (American, 1876 - 1962)

Date1933

MediumDrypoint

Dimensions14 x 16 3/4 in. (35.6 x 42.5 cm)

ClassificationsPrints and Printing Plates

Credit LineGift of the J. N. "Ding" Darling Foundation. In the permanent collection, Brunnier Art Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object numberUM82.185

Status

Not on view

Collections

CultureAmerican

Label TextDarling was an avid hunter and fisherman who was a witness to the plight of overhunted and under-protected waterfowl. In 1930 he was appointed to the Iowa State Fish and Game commission, a forerunner of the Iowa Conservation Commission. His conservation activities in Iowa led to his appointment as Chief of the U.S. Biological Survey in 1934. This large plate is cleanly wiped, and the ducks are executed in a rich drypoint. The landscape is only summarily indicated. There are pencil corrections on the lower ducks tail feathers. This print, one of a group of works called "Mr. and Mrs. Mallard" by Gordon Meany, shows that Darlings was working with the image of two landing ducks before he designed the "First Federal Duck Stamp." In fact, the reason that the duck stamp design looks the way it does was precisely because he had been doing prints like this one as well as others.

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