![\"Walter](\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Walter-Lowry-widgeon.jpg\")
<\/a>Walter Lowry was born in Creston, Iowa in 1878. He attended law school in Illinois and later settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin where he began his career in banking. He worked his way up from bank messenger to teller to bank president. Walter was a quiet, unassuming gentleman who was also an accomplished taxidermist, gunstock maker and decoy maker. He made decoys for over 25 years, as he loved the outdoors and enjoyed duck hunting. He carved mainly mallards, but also made pintail and black duck, as well as some teal and widgeon.<\/p>\n
Walter painted his decoys with artist tube oil mixed with varnish, which he blended to precision. It has been reported that Mr. Lowry was color blind, but you wouldn\u2019t know it from his painting! Before he painted his decoys, he soaked the decoys in linseed oil, then primed the block with linseed oil and white lead. Most of his decoys have stood the test of time and are beautiful examples of floating art. There is very little wear or flaking of his paint. Many of his decoys were scratch painted with a stick to outline individual feathers.<\/p>\n Many of Lowry\u2019s decoys have been misidentified as a famed Charles \u201cShang\u201d Wheeler original from the eastern seaboard. But, after a close review (which did result in removal of the bottom board) it was confirmed to be a Lowry. Walter\u2019s family has confirmed that Shang Wheeler did influence his carving style later in life. As it ends up, other La Crosse carvers were also influenced by Lowry\u2019s style! Perhaps Walter Lowry should be known as Wisconsin\u2019s Shang Wheeler? Either way, Walter\u2019s Decoys are very worthy of a place in the annals of Wisconsin carving history!<\/p>\n Walter passed away in 1966 at the age of 88.\u00a0 Lowry\u2019s decoys are highly collectible and have been sold on the auction market for hundreds of dollars. And\u2026 most examples still have excellent original paint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" a La Crosse, Wisconsin Carver It has been said that Wisconsin did not have a decoy carver that compared with the best carvers from along the Illinois River in Illinois! Well, Walter J. Lowry may just be that carver! Walter Lowry was born in Creston, Iowa in 1878. He attended law school in Illinois and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decoy-corner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4345,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341\/revisions\/4345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>