Culled from the Museum’s renowned decoy collection, this exhibition features eighty decoys by master artisans A. Elmer Crowell, Charles “Shang” Wheeler, Albert Laing, and Lemuel T. and Samuel Ward, among others. The exhibition includes thirteen different bird species, ranging from black ducks and Canada geese to swans, herons, and shorebirds. Operating under the principle that “birds of a feather flock together,” decoys are designed to lure game birds into gunning range by physically mimicking waterfowl in safe waters. Carvers of decoys are often hunters themselves, but they are no less naturalists and admirers of the beauty and diversity of their prey.
Colgate Gallery, Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education