This March, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum announced NSS Fellow Paul Rhymer as its 2023 Master Wildlife Artist. The Wausau, WI museum will honor Rhymer at the Museum’s 48^th annual Birds in Art exhibition in the fall.  In announcing this year’s Master, director Matt Foss said, “We’re thrilled to honor Paul Rhymer as the Woodson Art Museum’s 2023 Master Wildlife Artist. As an artist and person, Paul upholds the standards of excellence prized by the Museum’s staff, Board of Directors, and the Woodson family. His inclusion into the pantheon of past Master Wildlife Artists is apt.”

“When I got the call from Matt, I was gobsmacked. I had to sit down,” Rhymer recalls. “Participating in Birds in Art and seeing and meeting many of my artistic heroes, being in those rooms with that incredible art, is inspiring. With so much talent in that exhibition, being named Master Artist was, and is, inconceivable to me. I still don’t really believe it. It is the biggest honor of my career.”