Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
Wildlife Artist, which was bestowed on him at the 1989 Birds in Art exhibition. (Coheleach received the award in 1983.) Many of the Masters return every year for the show's opening; among those in attendance in 2012 were such luminaries as Robert Bateman, Walter Matia and Larry Barth. And Maynard Reece, who no one can remember not being there for a Birds in Art opening. "Maynard's a treasure," says Kathy Kelsey Foley, the human dynamo who serves as the Woodson's director. "He's so gracious, so generous, so positive; you can't spend any time at all around him and not come away feeling energized. He's an inspiration, really, and what he and his work have meant to Birds in Art over the years is just incalculable." At 92, Maynard's earned the right to sit rather than stand, and while he occupied a chair next to his panoramic depiction of a lone raven gliding over the foothills of the Rockies, I asked about his relationship with Jay "Ding" Darling, the eminent cartoonist and conservationist who influenced Reece early in his career. His blue eyes twinkled as he remembered their first meeting, in Darling's office at the Des Moines Register. "I was 18 years old," Reece recalled, "so you can imagine how nervous I was. Darling had a gruff persona, and when I very timidly showed him some of my paintings, he said 'Well, these are alright, but they're not really going to get you anywhere. Do you want me to tell you what's wrong with them?' "I said 'Yes, I want to improve,' and Darling became my mentor. I brought my work in for him to critique for a number of years and eventually he said 'Maynard, there's nothing more I can teach you – but don't stop coming by.'" Darling's famous farewell cartoon, published the day after his death in February 1962, depicts his studio filled with all the things that meant the most to him – including, to the right of the doorway, a painting of bobwhite quail by Maynard Reece. It was a terribly proud and poignant S P O R T I N G C 156 L A S S I moment for Reece; fittingly, that painting now resides in his personal collection, having been returned to him by Darling's heirs. (As an aside, Reece plays a prominent role in the documentary America's Darling: J.N. "Ding" Darling, which debuted October 23 in Des Moines, Reece's home since the 1940s.) Of course, the most famous of Reece's five Federal Duck Stamps – maybe the most famous Duck Stamp of all – is the 1959-'60 design featuring King Buck, the National Champion black Lab owned by John Olin, the Winchester-Western arms and ammunition magnate. "That's not the Duck Stamp," Maynard said to me with a smile when I asked him about it. "That's the 'Buck Stamp.'" He recalled that when he visited Olin's Nilo Kennels in southern Illinois to watch the dog in action and make some preliminary sketches for the stamp painting, Buck's trainer, Cotton Pershall, threw a mallard and Buck retrieved it perfectly. But when Pershall asked Buck to make a second retrieve, the dog looked at him with an expression that seemed to say You're not serious, are you? and absolutely refused! "He acted like it was beneath his dignity," said Reece, chuckling at the memory. It was the same when they took Buck into a room in the kennel building and posed him among his copious trophies. "He behaved like a perfect gentleman for about fifteen minutes," according to Reece. "Then he got up and walked to the door. It was like he was telling us 'We're done here.' "King Buck was a celebrity, and he knew it." There were other exhibition-goers waiting for their chance to chat with Maynard, so I thanked him for his time, exchanged a warm, firm handshake and moved along, marveling at all he's done and all he continues to do – and thinking that it's about time I got myself a new Jones cap. C S