Adam Grimm of Wallace, S.D., won his third Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest on Friday with an acrylic painting of a pair of spectacled eiders. Grimm’s painting will be used for the 2025-2026 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, or Duck Stamp, which will go on sale in late June 2025.

Adam Grimm
Grimm was also the national winner in the 1999 and 2013 Duck Stamp contests. His 1999 win came when he was just 21 years old, which is the youngest of any winner since the art contest began in 1941.
Duck stamps much be purchased by waterfowl hunters as part of their license requirements, but they are also purchased by conservationists and collectors. The Federal Duck Stamp program raises approximately $40 million in sales each year, which in turn supports critical conservation to conserve wetland habitats. About $1.3 billion has been raised since the program’s inception.
Each year, certain species of ducks are eligible for the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. This year’s eligible birds were the brant goose, the northern shoveler, the greater scaup, the spectacled eider and the hooded merganser.
The spectacled eider was a bold choice for Grimm’s entry. The duck is found only in parts of Alaska and Russia, and there are just 3,000 or 4,000 nesting pairs known to exist in Alaska. In fact, he had never seen one in the wild and had seen only one in a zoo.
“I was actually leaning heavily toward hooded merganser or northern shoveler or greater scaup. I finally had decided to paint hooded merganser,” he told the Watertown Current. “It’s just a beautiful duck, they’re widespread across the country, and I thought it would sell well.”
So Grimm and a friend headed to Wisconsin, where another friend had an aviary with hooded mergansers. He planned to take photos of the ducks to use for reference in his painting.
It turned out that his friend’s aviary also had some spectacled eiders, so he shot many photos of those ducks, as well.
“When I saw one in a zoo in Ohio, I thought wow, that is really cool-looking,” Grimm said of the eider. “And when I took pictures of them in Wisconsin, there was some beautiful evening sunlight and the photos turned out real good.”
The photos were so good, in fact, that Grimm changed his mind on his Duck Stamp entry.
“I figured the majority of entries would be hooded mergansers,” he said, because eiders just aren’t seen in very many places. They are really different looking, but they have good contrast, some neat color, and they live in a beautiful location, so I figured I could play that up, and play up the lighting and the mood of the scene. I figured that might help make my painting stand out for the judges.”
And he was right. His eider was chosen over paintings of hooded mergansers which placed second and third. Rebekah Knight of Deepwater, Mo,, placed second Abraham Hunter of Dandridge, Tenn., took third.
His winning painting features the same evening-sun lighting as his photos, and he added some very Alaska-looking mountains in the background.
This year’s national contest drew 240 entries from wildlife artists across the country.
Grimm has also won state-level Duck Stamp contests in Ohio (his home state), Louisiana, North Carolina, Washington and New York. He was also the 2022 Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year
His oldest daughter, Madison, who just turned 18 years old, is also an accomplished wildlife artist who has won the National Junior Duck Stamp Conest three times
Even though Grimm lived in Ohio until after his first daughter was born, he was always a fan of Watertown’s Terry Redlin.
“I remember seeing his work growing up and being really impressed by his art,” he said. “I still, to this day, enjoy going to the Redlin Art Center and walking through and admiring his artwork. It’s a great life’s collection.”
Redlin often entered, but never won, the National Duck Stamp competition.
Grimm’s work can be found on his website at adamgrimm.com.

Artist Adam Grimm works in his studio in Wallace, S.D.