Burton (Burt) Kannenberg – Milwaukee Decoy Carver and Waterfowler

Several excellent decoy carvers worked at the Milwaukee Public Museum in the 1930s. Owen Gromme was considered the Grand Master carver at the museum, and he set the example. Others included Warren Dettman and Walter Pelzer. Burt Kannenberg was another of those excellent carvers tutored by Gromme in the Milwaukee museum.

Burt Kannenberg was born in 1910 on the southern shores of Lake Winnebago. He spent most of his life in or near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His first job was as a painter with the Murals Department of the Milwaukee Public Museum. While he was at the museum, he learned to carve from Owen Gromme and his co-workers in the taxidermy Department. The “museum decoys” were used to collect specimens for display at the museum. Those decoys were constructed from three to five 1-1/2-inch boards laminated one on top of the other. They were hollow, very well painted with the finest oil paint,, and most decoys were in a resting or contented posture.

Kannenberg began duck hunting in 1927 and started carving decoys in 1934, when he and two friends assisted him in making a rig of 150 decoys that they agreed to split three ways.  Burt carved ringnecks, teal, and woodducks in that rig. He also carved several Canada geese in 1935 that he used as confidence decoys. Burt made his decoy bodies from pine boards, and his heads were made from cedar. Some of his decoys were fitted with glass eyes, others were equipped with tack eyes. He used oil paint over the sealed and primed bodies and heads. Burt’s decoys were considered more functional than beautiful, but all were very folky and in the “Milwaukee School” style. It is said that Burt had no special duck-hunting hole, but instead moved from one pothole to another, from lake to stream, and then to a field, following the ducks.

Burt passed away in 1995. As you would expect, Kannenberg decoys are a rare find, given the limited number he produced, and are highly valued by collectors. Another fine Milwaukee Museum decoy carver and avid Wisconsin Waterfowler.