Minnesota wildlife artist Bob Hautman captures the world in broad strokes

The other day Bob Hautman turned on one light, then another, curious whether the change in luminescence affected the mien, or appearance, of the ducks he was painting.

This was at the farm-turned-wildlife mecca west of the Twin Cities that Hautman shares with his wife, the artist Dodie Logue, and Hautman was putting the finishing touches on his 2024 Federal Duck Stamp entry.

Hautman, of course, is one of the three famous Hautman brothers — the others are Joe and Jim — who have won the Federal Duck Stamp contest a record 15 times. A familial tally that will never be broken, unless, as I’ve noted previously, the brothers clone themselves.

On this day, Bob’s studio is comfortable, with no need to fire up its wood-burning stove. A one-time hen house, the studio looks out over a small wetland and, beyond it, a grassy lowland that is an occasional home to wood ducks, red-winged black birds, deer and other critters. Bearing the cadence of art itself, the studio is a comfortable place, taking its own time.

“I have worked in oil and acrylic, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve painted in gouache, which is sort of a cross between acrylic and a water color,” Bob said. “Some oils can take a year to dry, while acrylic dries quickly. Gouache, I can move around for an hour or so after I paint it.”

Bob, Jim and Joe are among seven kids born to Elaine and Tuck Hautman of St. Louis Park. Elaine was a professional artist and Tuck also dabbled in painting, channeling for inspiration the many duck hunts he made to Leech Lake.

Always creative, Bob as a kid was most interested in pottery, and in school he stayed after class to shape clay into bowls and cups. If the time he had spent over a potter’s wheel had paid the bills, he might still be spinning clay today.

Instead, after high school, he and Jim started swinging hammers, roofing, until one day they noticed their mom was selling driftwood pieces on which she painted ducks.