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Les Kouba
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Internationally known as one of the world's foremost painters of wildlife, Les Kouba's deep understanding of the subject stems from his youth on a Minnesota farm. Impressed by the beauty of nature at an early age, he was afforded ample opportunity to observe and study wildlife in their natural habitat.
At 14, Mr. Kouba supplemented his natural artistic talent with a correspondence school art course. The guidance of professional art instruction was invaluable in helping develop his own unusual technique which immediately identifies his work. His exciting oils, and dynamic water colors are known worldwide and reputed to be some of the most authentic portraits of wildlife existence.
In addition, Mr. Kouba's works have appeared on the covers if many national magazines, as illustrations for outdoor books and he is nationally known as an award winning package designer. He has also gained fame as the designer of Federal Duck Stamps. The artist was honored in "Men of Achievement 1974", "Who's Who in Art", International Directory of Arts and "Who's Who", elected 1976-77 D.U."Artist of the Year", winner of Minnesota's First Waterfowl Stamp Competition for the 1978 stamp and, in 1980, being of Czech heritage, recipient of the "King Charles International Award", for outstading achievements in art.
An extremely active supporter of "Ducks Unlimited", an international organization of sportsmen who foster the propagation of waterfowl, Les says "Ducks have been good to me. . .I want to be good to them." Les Kouba's contributions in artwork to Ducks Unlimited now exceeds his goal set for $1,000,000.
He is the Founder and Director of American Wildlife Art Galleries of Minneapolis, which houses one of the largest collections of original wildlife art in the Nation. The gallery exhibits hundreds of vividly exciting water color and oil paintings by famous American wildlife artists.
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