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A LITTLE HISTORY ON THE 13TH (1946-47) DUCK STAMP ARTIST

Robert W. Hines was born in Columbus, Ohio on February 6, 1912.   He attended the local schools there and in Fremont, Ohio where his family moved in 1921.  He graduated from Fremont Ross High School in 1926.

Early in 1939, Mr. Hines was accepted for a job as staff artist for the Ohio Division of Conservation in Columbus, Ohio.

Nine years later, Mr. Hines landed a job as an artist-illustrator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington.  There, his first supervisor was Miss Rachel Carson who at the time was just publishing her epic, The Sea Around Us. Later, another famous book by Miss Carson, The Edge of the Sea, was illustrated by Mr. Hines.

Mr. Hines worked for a highly scientific organization and consequently had to make his work extremely accurate.  His travels took him to all but three states.  During his travels, he spent time sketching, taking photographs, and gathering data for his illustrations.  He served as consultant and administrator for the Duck Stamp contest and painted three huge wildlife murals for the Interior Building in Washington, D.C.   In recognition of his ability, he received three Meritorious Awards from the Department of the Interior.

In private life, Mr. Hines was a man with great personal charm, and a deceptively relaxed almost sleepy manner.  He was married with three children.  He enjoyed hunting, fishing and photography in his spare time.

Mr. Hines designed the first of four stamps in the Wildlife conservation Postage Stamp Series and was one of the two men who helped inaugurate the series.  The four stamps in the series are Wild Turkey, Pronghorn Antelope, King Salmon, and Whooping Crane.   The British philatelic press selected the crane stamp as one of the ten best stamps in the world for 1957.

Mr. Hines wrote and illustrated Ducks at a Distance, which was published by the he Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.  He has also done illustrations for Wildlife in America by Mattheisson, North American Waterfowl by Day, Alaska's Animals and Fishes by Dufresne, Raw North by Gillham, The Upland, Game Hunters Bible by Holland, Migration of Birds by Lincoln, Picture Primer of Attracting Birds by Mason, Bass Fishing in America by Bauer, Crusade for Wildlife by Arefethan, Outdoors Unlimited by the Outdoor Writers Association of America, Pheasants in North America by Allan, Honker by McClung, Face of North America by Farb, Waterfowl Tomorrow and Birds in Our Lives, both publications of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

Mr. Hines' drawings and paintings have been reproduced by conservation magazines in every state in the union, in Canada and even in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Hines died November 6, 1994 in Falls Church, Virginia.

-------------------------THE ART-------------------------
Redheads was done in pen and ink and watercolor wash.  The artwork was redone on a lithograph stone and hand pulled using black ink on white paper.  The prints were signed in pencil but not numbered.  The image size of the print is 5"x7".

-------------------------THE STAMP-------------------------
Redheads...Engraved by the Federal Bureau of Engraving from the original artwork.   Printed in medium dark maroon brown ink..  The stamp sold for one dollar.  Postal records show 2,016,841 stamps sold.  First day of sale was July 1, 1946.

Most of the information contained above is from the book Federal Duck Stamp Story, Fifty Years of Excellence, by Laurence F. Jonson; Alexander & Co.  It is used here with permission from the author. For more information on this book, please click here.