County Lines Magazine, June 1987
Dave Watson was a well-known character, but not someone you'd figure for great success in the world of art. Born in 1851, "Umbrella Watson" was a waterman, and he spent his life as a hunter and guide for sport gunners. His neighbors on Chincoteague Island always saw him wearing rubber boots and carrying an umbrella; he said only a fool would be caught in the rain without them.
But "Umbrella Watson" is remembered today for more than his raingear. In the course of his work, Watson and others like him carved decoys, images of birds today considered to have such artistic merit that they have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Particularly rare examples of these decoys have sold for up to $300,000. And from May 23 through August 2, a collection of 51 examples of what is now recognized as a unique American folk art will be displayed at the Brandywine River Museum in a show titled "An Art of Deception: American Wildfowl Decoys."
The exhibit begins the same day as the museum's annual Antiques Show. Like other antiques, the decoys were made for practical purposes in the past, and are avidly sought today by collectors. But as their practical value decreased, they came to be seen as art objects: sculptures of North American wildfowl that range from crudely vigorous abstract renderings to charming, lifelike images that rival Audubon. And their makers, about whom colorful legends abound, are now considered folk artists: untrained, but naturally gifted.
Although most of the pieces in the exhibit were made between 1890 and 1935, the story of the decoy begins with the American Indians, who as early as 1000 A.D. had used bulrushes and feathers to fashion imitations of canvasback ducks and other wildfowl. European settlers of the new continent discovered and continued the practice, carving and painting wooden lures to bring the real birds within range of their muzzle-loading guns.
By the middle of the 19th century, several factors had combined to create what decoy expert William J. Mackey Jr. called "the greatest wildfowl hunt the world has ever known." There were more people moving from the farms to the factories, and they wanted meat on their tables. There were breech-loading shotguns available, more accurate and easier to use than the old flintlocks. And there arose a new breed of businessmen called "market hunters," whose stock in trade were the millions of wildfowl following their customary migratory routes along the Atlantic flyway.
Many of the decoys collected today were made by the market hunters. They had no training in art, but they knew their subjects, according to Virginia Herrick, assistant curator at the Brandywine River Museum. "They were really keen in observation," she said. "They'd been around birds, they'd been around water." And the best of them developed an ability to carve and paint decoys that could fool people, not to mention birds. For close-in work on a shoreline or bay, the decoys had to be realistic to be effective.
But realism alone is not enough to distinguish a decoy as a work of art. No matter how well-crafted they are, some decoys just do not, as Herrick said, "have that extra little bit of life in them." That extra spark could only come from the hand and eye of such masters as Nathan Cobb, whose 1870 curlew decoy will be part of the exhibit. Cobb was able to create a sense of the live bird through skillful joining of the head and body sections, carving long, graceful heads and necks from the weathered roots of holly trees. He went to such expensive lengths as using German taxidermists' eyes for his decoys, while most makers contented themselves with carved or painted features.
A. Elmer Crowell was another renowned carver, the acknowledged master of decoy painting. He would spread thin dabs of color over a base coat, then spread the colors with a dry brush so the brushmarks would simulate feathers. Black-bellied Plovers carved by Crowell were used as cover illustrations for the book "American Bird Decoys," and have come to be called "dust-jacket plovers."
The realistic birds carved by Cobb, Crowell, and others seem to sleep, feed, or look up with an alert expression. Other decoys are less lifelike, more abstract and primitive—but are still highly regarded as sculpture. "You learn to look for other qualities in them," Herrick said. Sometimes the carver meant to produce only a rough image of the bird. Sea duck decoys, for instance, were not placed as near the real birds as other types, and so were simpler in design and construction. But the primitive carvings can have their own sort of animation, and some are strikingly similar to modern sculpture. A pair of antique heron decoys discovered by a collector was once pronounced "worthy of Brancusi" by Stuart Preston, an art critic for The New York Times. Others have a cheerfully naive quality, simple and direct, like children's art.
Styles of decoys varied with the region, maker, type of bird, and method of hunting. For shorebirds such as sandpipers, yellowlegs, curlews and plovers, decoys called "stick-ups" were used. The decoy was mounted on a stick and placed at the waterline, or in the dunes. "Flatties" were two-dimensional bird silhouettes, made of metal or wooden boards. Floating decoys were used for ducks and geese. They rode at anchor on a line, and the market hunters sometimes combined them in "rigs" that numbered several hundred. Many were of a type called "dug-outs," so named because the makers would split the wooden body section, hollow out the two parts, and fasten them back together.
Commercial wildfowl hunting ended in 1918 with the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which outlawed the sale of North American waterfowl. But decoys continued to be made by and for the sport gunner and tourist.
Today artists carve meticulously detailed decorative birds that would never have been considered practical by the hunters. But many of the classic decoys, individually made for use in hunting, are still available. They are found in antique shops, rummage sales, attics and garages. Collectors have found them on beaches, plucked them from trash fires, and rescued them from among the ketchup bottles on restaurant shelves.
The Brandywine River Museum exhibit is on loan from the collection of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, which is also providing educational display material about different regions, styles, and makers. During the Antiques Show the exhibit will be in the museum lobby, arranged by region in display cases; afterwards it will move to the second floor. An article by decoy expert Jeff Waingrow will be in the Antiques Show catalog, and his book on the exhibit collection is available at the Museum Shop. The exhibit will be organized by Herrick, with the help of assistant registrar Deborah Seymour.
Herrick said the Brandywine Conservancy, which operates the museum, is concerned with the Brandywine Valley's artistic heritage as well as its natural resources. That makes the museum particularly appropriate for exhibiting decoys, she said, because they combine art and nature, the practical and the beautiful. "It's something that started out as utilitarian, and shows how people used their own artistic abilities," she said. "They end up making something that has real artistic appeal, as well as being useful."
The Brandywine River Museum is located on Route 1 in Chadds Ford, PA. Hours: daily 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission $3; children 6–12, senior citizens, students with I.D., $1.50; children under 6, free. (215) 388-7601.