One of Minnesota’s Hautman brothers wins the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest again

The duck painting dynasty continues for the Minnesota’s wildlife painting Hautman brothers.

This year, Chaska resident Jim Hautman emerged victorious in the 2025 Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest run by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to decide which image will be reproduced on tens of thousands of federal duck stamps sold since 1934 to hunters, bird-watchers, outdoor enthusiasts and collectors.

Leading up to this year’s contest, Hautman and his brother, Joe, were tied with a record six wins each in the coveted contest. Their brother, Bob, had won three times.

Jim Hautman broke the tie with his brother and became the most winning artist in the contest’s history with his acrylic painting of three bufflehead ducks flying over a windswept Minnesota lake. It was chosen as the winner out of 290 entries.

Hautman, 61, said he first started entering the contest in 1986. He won it in 1990 at the age of 25, becoming the youngest painter at the time to win the competition.

“It feels great. It’s always exciting,” Hautman said of his latest win.

If you win the contest, you aren’t eligible to enter again for the next three years. So Hautman has actually won the contest about once every three times he’s entered. He said he’s also come in second in the contest six times.

Eligible species for this year’s duck stamp contest were wood duck, gadwall, cinnamon teal, bufflehead and ruddy duck.

Hautman said he likes the colorful wood duck and cinnamon teals, but he was drawn to trying to portray the bufflehead.

“I had an idea of flying buffleheads. They’re so striking with their black and white feathers,” he said.

He said he prepared for the contest by painting some bufflehead decoys and setting them out in a lake this spring and taking thousands of photos of birds flying by.

He worked and reworked the background based on a photo of a northern Minnesota lake at sunset in October.

“It wasn’t until I put the waves in that it got the life I wanted to have, ”He said.

Including the days in the field and three weeks he worked on painting, he said he may have put in about 100 hours of work into the entry.

Despite his many prior wins, Hautman wasn’t confident before the final decision of the judges on Friday pronounced him the winner.

He actually thought his brother Bob might have had a better shot.

“You get kind of snow blind to your entry if you look at it too much,” he said. “It wasn’t like I went in there saying, ‘I got this.’ It was a pleasant surprise.”