North American Decoys at Auction April 21 & 22, 2016

Joe French began collecting decoys in the early 1950s sparked by his very first acquisition in 1954, a pair of old squaw by Mark English as a gift from William Mackey. Right up until just a few days prior to his death in May of 2009 he remained actively involved in collecting, writing articles, and communicating with other collectors about this, his life long passion. During his collecting career, Joe rubbed shoulders with some of the most noted early decoy collectors, authors, artists, and makers. Included among these early names were the likes of Charles Perdew of Henry, Illinois, Bob Weeks of Bureau, Illinois, George Ross Starr, noted collector and author of “Decoys of the Atlantic Flyway,” Hal Sorenson, editor “Decoy Collector’s Guide,” Adele Earnest, early folk art collector and author of “The Art of the Decoy,” Milt Weiler artist and creator of the “Classic Decoys and Shorebird Decoys” series, famous early collector William Mackey author “American Bird Decoys,” Walter Bush early carver of New Jersey, and Thomas Marshall of Connecticut to mention but a few.

Like many of the early decoy collectors, Joe French’s love of duck hunting led to his decoy collecting hobby. Most of Joe’s hunting was done over flooded millet and corn fields near St. Louis in St. Charles County, Missouri. At that time, the decoys of choice for the local hunters were of paper fibre produced by the Airduks Decoy Factory in St. Louis. Wishing to improve on these decoys, which over time would deteriorate, Joe considered producing his own rig. As luck would have it, a man named Bill Hager lent him a copy of Joel Barber’s book, “Wildfowl Decoys.” It was here where Joe first saw photos of Shang Wheeler’s decoys. As a result of seeing the finely carved decoys of this famous maker, Joe decided he would carve a rig of wooden decoys for himself patterned after Wheeler’s birds. If only he could get his hands on one of Wheeler’s decoys.