By Anne W. Semmes
The Bruce Museum has acquired the winning 2025/2026 Duck Stamp art of “Arctic Watch.” To celebrate this addition to its already impressive collection of 60-plus Federal Duck Stamp original art paintings – thanks again to Greenwich donor Richie Prager – the Bruce has put on display the winning “Arctic Watch” painting of a nesting pair of Spectacled Eiders in an Alaskan setting. And June 27 kicks off the nationwide 2025–2026 waterfowl hunting season and sale of the “Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation” stamp needed by those 16-year-olds and older to hunt for those ducks and geese in the hunting season. So issued by U.S. Department of the Interior.
Those duck stamps have annually been for sale since 1934, with the kicking off of the Duck Stamp Contest 75 years ago. This year’s winner, Adam Grimm from South Dakota, as selected last September at the Contest-hosting Bruce Museum, has won two previous times. He worked in oil for his first winning painting of “Mottled Duck” at age 21 (youngest winning artist to date), with his second “Where Kings Reign” being a flock of flying canvasback ducks. But with his “Arctic Watch” he has switched from oil to acrylic, as seen now in the Bruce’s Science Gallery.
“The Federal Duck Stamp is one of the most successful conservation initiatives in American history,” tells Daniel Ksepka, the Bruce’s Curator of Science. With 98 percent of that $25 Federal Duck Stamp going directly to conserving needed habitat, tells Ksepka, and “measuring less than three square inches, the Duck Stamp has had an outsized impact, supporting the Federal protection of over six million acres of wetland habitat.”
Ksepka adds importantly, “Today, not only hunters but conservationists and an enthusiastic community of collectors purchase the stamp each year.”
Viewers of this year’s winning “Arctic Watch” will see alongside it a companion work, “Arctic Summit” – gifted by both artist Grimm and Richie Prager – that depicts a more expansive scene of the diversity of bird species that nest in Alaska, “in many cases migrating thousands of miles to take advantage of the perpetual summer daylight and scarcity of predators.”
Eliza McNitt’s Film “ANCESTRA” Tells Story with AI of Her Childbirth
Eliza McNitt is a science prize-winner graduate of Greenwich High School and now a star-making writer and director of films. She is an Emmy Awards Finalist and recipient of the VR Grand Prize at The Venice Film Festival. Her work explores the cosmic collision of science and art, from astronauts to astrophysics.
Last Friday her groundbreaking short film “ANCESTRA: Humans, Hearts, and Storytelling in the age of AI” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. It was dedicated to her mother, Audrey Appleby [known for her cabaret arts, and founding Magic Dance for children].
In her film McNitt, with the help of AI, “transforms family archives and her mother’s memory into an intimate and visually expansive narrative inspired by the circumstances of the day Eliza was born: During an emergency delivery, an expectant mother draws on the strength of all that came before—past matriarchs to dying stars transforming her love into a cosmic force to save her daughter’s life.”
The dramatic, fast-moving 8-minute film features an actress playing the role of Eliza’s mother pre and post childbirth, demonstrating how “human memory, emotional storytelling, and cutting-edge generative tools come together in the making of ANCESTRA.” The film ends with the dedicating “For Mom with Love.”
The film was followed by a panel presentation with participants in the film discussing “how blending live-action performances with generative visuals creates a deeply personal story…how filmmakers are shaping Google DeepMind’s video model, developing generative storytelling techniques and workflows rooted in their creative vision.”
“ANCESTRA: Humans, Hearts, and Storytelling in the age of AI” is now on YouTube.
Steinway Piano George Gershwin Composed on in Backcountry Greenwich
A visual has surfaced of a rare upright Steinway, circa 1929, that was owned by the James Warburg family late of John Street. The visual was sent to this reporter post her May 30 Greenwich Sentinel article, “George Gershwin’s Creative Life in Greenwich.” The sender, Jeffrey Earls of Bridgeport, had taken the photo years back, “working on an annual fundraiser for Family Reentry which was held at Joan Warburg’s home in backcountry Greenwich a number of years ago.”
Earls, who has worked in Development at Family Reentry tells of having had the piano tuned for a benefit performance by New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint, “so Allen could have the special privilege of playing this wonderful piano! George Gershwin had composed some of ‘Porgy and Bess’ on this piano.” He adds that Allen had prepared for his concert at the Warburg guest house where Gershwin took up summer residence and more.
PS On December 22, 2024, BBC Radio 3 featured a two-hour drama on “Gershwin & Miss Swift” – “a fascinating true story that takes us to New York and the extraordinary affair between composer Kay Swift [former Mrs. Warburg] and George Gershwin.” Available online.
Thanks again to Greenwich donor Richie Prager – the Bruce has put on display the winning “Arctic Watch” painting of a nesting pair of Spectacled Eiders in an Alaskan setting.
The Bruce Museum celebrates a new acquisition of a Duck Stamp painting now displayed; a pioneering film using AI by Greenwich film maker Eliza McNitt, featuring her childbirth premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival; an archival photograph surfaces of an upright Steinway piano that George Gershwin reportedly composed on in backcountry Greenwich.
