Masters of American Photography postage stamps

[ChrisPlatt]

There's a beautiful new issue of 37¢ (the new rate) stamps at the post office.
The sheet of self-stick stamps is entitled Masters of American Photography.

Included are beautiful black & white images by photographers
Southworth & Hawes, William Henry Jackson, Timothy H. O'Sullivan,
Carleton E. Watkins, Gertrude Kasebier, Lewis W. Hine, Alvin Langdon Coburn,
Edward Steichen, Alfred Steiglitz, Man Ray, Edward Weston,
James VanDerZee, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith,
Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Andre Kertesz,
Garry Winogrand and Minor White.

There's information about each photo and photographer on the back.

Excelsior, you fatheads!
-Chris-

[EDGY01]

thanks for sharing!!

[Skip]

We just bought a sheet last week, it's now wrapped in plastic. We're not
collectors, but it just seemed a shame to use the first ones we bought on
anything as prosaic as mail...
--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
"ChrisPlatt" <chris...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020622213322...@mb-cq.aol.com...

[Mark]

Here's the press release from the US Postal Service:

 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 9, 2002
Stamp Release #02-023

Famous Photos From America's Top Photographers Highlight New Postage Stamps

WASHINGTON - Dramatic black and white photographs taken by 20 of the nation's most important and influential photographers will be featured on new commemorative postage stamps to be issued June 13 by the United States Postal Service.

The public is invited to the first day of issue ceremony, which will be held on June 13, 2002, at 11 a.m. PT, at The Museum of Photographic Arts, 1649 El Prado, San Diego, Calif. The new stamps will be available in San Diego starting June 13, and at post offices across the country beginning the following day.

"These are beautiful stamps that illustrate some of the most creative photography produced in this country," said Einar V. Dyhrkopp, a member of the presidentially appointed Postal Service Board of Governors, who will dedicate the stamps. "The diversity of our stamp program demonstrates a wide range of talent and beauty that can be found throughout our nation. Stamps celebrate our heritage and remind all of us of what American ingenuity has accomplished over the past 225 years."

The Masters of American Photography stamps will be available in a pane of 20 stamps that includes examples of portrait, documentary, landscape and fine art photography. Many of the major themes and events in U.S. history, including immigration, the Great Depression and World War II, are captured in these compelling images. Arranged in chronological order, the stamps also offer a visual sampling of the history and development of photography in the United States.

The pane also includes a black-and-white selvage photograph taken in 1888 or 1889 by William Henry Jackson or one of his assistants. The photograph depicts a photographer using a mammoth-plate camera precariously balanced atop Overhanging Rock, some 3,200 feet above Yosemite Valley in California. With his keen appreciation for natural vistas, Jackson chose field photography as a way of life and was noted for his landscapes of the American West. This picture dramatically illustrates some of the challenges frontier photographers faced in pursuit of just the right subject and viewpoint.

Also featured on the pane are photographs by the following:

• Albert Sands Southworth (1811-1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808-1901)
  (From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Boston, Mass.)
  Among the finest daguerreotypists of their day, Southworth and Hawes achieved international prominence for their captivating portraits and views. Their Boston studio's eminent clients included Senator Daniel Webster; this c. 1850 portrait of the statesman and political orator vividly captured his indomitable character.
  
  
• Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840-1882)
  (From the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
  Known for his Civil War pictures and western landscapes, O'Sullivan was a field photographer highly regarded for his daring compositional style based on technical proficiency and visual artistry. He made this photograph of General Ulysses S. Grant and his officers on May 21, 1864, looking down from a window of Massaponax Church in Virginia.
  
  
• Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916)
  "Cape Horn, Columbia River" 1867
  (From the Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Ore.)
  One of the best landscape photographers of the 19th century, Watkins used a specially constructed mammoth-plate camera to record the scenic grandeur and burgeoning development of the American West. "Cape Horn, Columbia River," 1867, reveals his refined artistic vision, extraordinary eye for composition, and flawless technique.
  
  
• Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934)
  "Blessed Art Thou Among Women"
  (From the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
  Eminent portrait photographer Käsebier, whose best known images are those of mothers and children, pioneered an evocative soft-focus style that established her as a guiding force in the pictorialist movement. "Blessed Art Thou Among Women," a sensitive and artistic portrayal of author Agnes Rand Lee and her daughter Peggy, was made in 1899.
  
  
• Lewis W. Hine (1847-1940)
  "Looking for Lost Baggage, Ellis Island" 1905
  (From the George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.)
  Documentary photographer Hine also achieved fame as a social reformer. Best known for pictures of immigrants, child laborers, and industrial workers, Hine viewed his subjects with compassion and their harsh surroundings with an unflinching eye. "Looking for Lost Baggage, Ellis Island," 1905, captured the uncertain hope of newly arrived immigrants.
  
  
• Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966)
  "The Octopus" 1912
  (From the George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.)
  An innovative photographic artist, Coburn utilized soft-focus techniques, unusual perspectives, and abstract compositions. "The Octopus," 1912, made by looking down on Madison Square Park from atop a Manhattan skyscraper, is an early example of modern photography that expresses the visual dynamic of the new metropolis.
  
  
• Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
  "Lotus, Mount Kisco, New York" 1915
  (From the George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.)
  A remarkably versatile photographer, Edward Steichen played a pivotal role in elevating photography to a fine art. "Lotus, Mount Kisco, New York," 1915, reveals his mastery of the medium, as well as his belief that the forms found in nature helped validate the turn toward abstraction in early 20th-century art.
  
  
• Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946)
  "Hands and Thimble" 1920
  (From The Art Institute of Chicago; Chicago, Ill.)
  A seminal figure in American art and photography, Stieglitz championed the idea of photography as a distinct art medium and continually challenged its technical limits and pictorial conventions. "Hands and Thimble," is one of more than 300 images he made over the course of 20 years that together form an extended portrait of the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, whom he married in 1924.
  
  
• Man Ray (1890-1976)
  "Rayograph" 1923
  (From the Man Ray Trust, Hicksville, N.Y.)
  Man Ray, an artist who worked in all media, expanded the limits of photography with innovations such as the cameraless images he called rayographs, made by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing the arrangement to light. The mazelike spiral design in "Rayograph," shows his imaginative method of creating abstract pictures.
  
  
• Edward Weston (1886-1958)
  "Two Shells" 1927
  (From the Estate of Edward Weston, Carmel, Calif.)
  Weston, an early proponent for the unmanipulated, sharp-focused realism of "straight" photography, sought to capture the quintessence of his subjects. Acclaimed for the tonal beauty and technical precision of his landscapes, nudes, portraits and still lifes, Weston made many photographs-including "Two Shells"-that are considered icons of modernism.
  
  
• James VanDerZee (1886-1983)
  "My Corsage" 1931
  (From Donna Mussenden VanDerZee, New York, N.Y.)
  VanDerZee was the preeminent African-American portrait photographer in New York City between the two World Wars. Commissioned by celebrities and ordinary people alike, as well as by organizations, his formal portraits and group pictures captured the vitality of the Harlem Renaissance. His distinctive pictorial style is evident in "My Corsage," 1931.
  
  
• Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)
  "Ditched, Stalled, and Stranded, San Joaquin Valley, California" 1935
  (From the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
  A deeply compassionate documentary photographer, Lange is best known for her compelling pictures of the unemployed and uprooted victims of the Great Depression. With an empathetic eye she recorded not only their impoverished circumstances, but also their fortitude and spirit. "Ditched, Stalled, and Stranded, San Joaquin Valley, California," 1935, reflects her intimate portrait style.
  
  
• Walker Evans (1903-1975)
  "Washroom and Dining Area of Floyd Burroughs' Home, Hale County, Alabama" 1936
  (From the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
  Evans found beauty in the commonplace and turned documentary photography into an art form. Made during the summer of 1936, his now classic photographs of three sharecroppers, their homes and their families-which were published in the eloquent book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"-are emblematic of how we have come to visualize the austerity of the Great Depression.
  
  
• W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978)
  "Frontline Soldier with Canteen, Saipan" June 1944
  (From the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Ariz.)
  Highly respected for his brilliant and compassionate photo-essays, Smith was one of America's most acclaimed photojournalists. During World War II, he gained a reputation for pictures that showed both the horror of war and the heroism of soldiers under fire, including "Frontline Soldier with Canteen, Saipan," June, 1944.
  
  
• Paul Strand (1890-1976)
  "Steeple" 1946
  (From the Paul Strand Archive, Millerton, N.Y.)
  Strand, whose cubist, nearly abstract photographs broke new ground during the second decade of the 20th century, applied a similar geometric complexity to the broad range of straight photography that he advocated thereafter. "Steeple," 1946, from his book "Time in New England," is typical of Strand's modernist compositional style, emphasizing form, light and space.
  
  
• Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
  "Sand Dunes, Sunrise" 1948
  (From The Ansel Adams Trust, Mill Valley, Calif.)
  Renowned art photographer and environmental leader Adams was praised for his sublime interpretations of the dramatic beauty found in the western landscape. Rendered with a naturalist's precision and a pictorialist's virtuosity, "Sand Dunes, Sunrise," 1948, reveals the sharpness of detail and rich tonal range-from deepest black to purest white-that are hallmarks of his work.
  
  
• Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)
  "Age and Its Symbols" 1958
  (From The Imogen Cunningham Trust, Berkeley, Calif.)
  A photographer of exceptional sensibility and one of the founders of modernist photography, Cunningham is best known for her plant studies and portraits. In a departure from her earlier romantic pictorial style, she began making sharply focused, realistic photographs in the 1920s. "Age and Its Symbols," 1958, a portrait of Ida C. Pabst, is compelling for its revealing personal intimacy.
  
  
• André Kertész (1894-1985)
  (From the Estate of André Kertész, New York, N.Y.)
  By combining simple, personal observation with compassionate interest in the human condition, Hungarian-born Kertész made carefully balanced yet spontaneous photographs infused with the appealing brightness and wit he found in the urban experience. The dramatic play between pattern and deep space in this New York cityscape reveals Kertész's mastery of complex composition.
  
  
• Garry Winogrand (1928-1984)
  (From the Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Calif.)
  Fascinated with photographing people on the street, Winogrand originated an approach to candid photography that extended the scope of the documentary tradition. This 1965 work is typical of Winogrand's whimsical view of contemporary urban life: the random mixing of pedestrians, their chance gestures, and the interactions of men and women.
  
  
• Minor White (1908-1976)
  "Bristol, Vermont" 1971
  (From The Minor White Archive, Princeton, N.J.)
  A major figure in the expressive movement in art photography, White was an innovative photographer intent on conveying deep personal feelings through his work. Committed as well to the spiritual and the sacred in art, White excelled in using symbolic representation, as depicted in "Bristol, Vermont," 1971. The arrow on this snowy road represents the concept of passage.
  

Peter C. Bunnell, McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University, served as the main consultant for this project. Professor Bunnell is also faculty curator of photography at The Art Museum at Princeton and curator of the Minor White Archive.

Derry Noyes, of Washington, D.C., was the designer and art director for this stamp pane. To see the Masters of American Photography stamps, and other 2002 issues, go to the Stamp Release Schedule located in the Collector's Corner of the Postal Store at www.usps.com/shop. Images of many past and future stamp issues can be found in the Stamp Issues section of the Collector's Corner.

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[Skip]

Thanks, Mark!

--
Skip Middleton
http://www.shadowcatcherimagery.com

"Mark" <MarkWestlin...@cox.net> wrote in message news:t%cR8.75923$3R2.2...@news1.west.cox.net...

 

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[ChrisPlatt]

I found an image on the USPS website:

http://shop.usps.com/images/02_moap37_f.jpg

Excelsior, you fatheads!
-Chris-

[ChrisPlatt]

Here's a better scan:

http://www.whinydogpress.com/stamps.html

Excelsior, you fatheads!
-Chris-