James meger biography book

A winner of the state duck and pheasant stamp contests, he brought his love for rural life to his works.

James A. Meger couldn’t remember a time in his life that he didn’t want to be an artist.

By Dennis Anderson. Wildlife artist James Meger, whose oil and acrylic renditions of canvasback ducks and other fowl sparked a year-plus painting career that found an appreciative audience nationwide, has died of cancer. He was 69 and lived in Edina. A graduate of St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn. For about nine years, he taught art in Louisiana and Minnesota schools before quitting to paint full time.

Born in tiny Minneota in Lyon County, Meger relayed through many of his paintings a love of, and fascination with, rural Americana, especially the farmsteads and wildlife -- pheasants in particular -- that once dotted the southwest Minnesota landscape. Meger added the state pheasant stamp contest to his credits in and often hid in his paintings wildlife that wasn't readily visible.

Attorney Tony Soderman of the Twin Cities, a longtime friend and onetime hunting partner, said Meger was undeterred by wildlife art trends. At first, he couldn't stop painting canvasbacks.

Meger wants to tell a story with each of his paintings.

But he branched out, painting snowy owls, timber wolves and other wildlife. Minnesota wildlife artist David Maass said he first met Meger in the late s when he, Soderman and Meger were invited to hunt at the late Jimmy Robinson's duck camp on Delta Marsh, Manitoba. An excellent wingshot, Meger was an avid waterfowler whose time afield inspired his art, Maass said.

But Meger quit hunting in the early s when he mistakenly killed a hen canvasback instead of the drake, or male, he had targeted. If he ever killed another duck, it wasn't in my presence. When Meger won the state duck stamp, wildlife art was big business, with established and even new painters often selling hundreds of limited-edition prints.