Sylvia Goaman; postage stamp designer

[Hyfler/Rosner]

http://www.gibbonsstampmonthly.com/requested/artofdesignsep92.pdfhttp://www.bacchic.com/errors/122005.htmlSylvia Goaman(Filed: 26/08/2006) Telegraph Sylvia Goaman, who died on August 3 aged 82, won aninternational reputation in the specialised field of postagestamp design. In professional partnership with her husband, Michael,she undertook commissions for Great Britain and Commonwealthissues throughout the 1950s and 1960s, scoring a noted earlysuccess with her design for the 4d stamp issued as part ofthe Coronation celebrations in 1953. Perhaps her outstanding gift was for botanical stampdesign, as may be seen in her admired GB series to mark theInternational Botanical Congress in 1964. The precisedetail, purity of design, handling of colour and harmony ofpictorial elements with essential postage details aretypical of Sylvia Goaman's work. She was born Sylvia Nancy Priestley on April 30 1924,the second daughter of the playwright JB Priestley. Bornprematurely, she spent her earliest days in a rudimentaryincubator; then, at the age of 18 months, she lost hermother to cancer, a tragedy that drew her close to her eldersister Barbara. Their father married again in 1925, and thefamily grew to one of six children. Sylvia's creative talent was evident from an earlyage. She and her friend Susan Parkinson, who was to make hername as a ceramic designer, were unruly pupils at theirboarding school in Buckinghamshire until they were given asmall turret room to use as an art studio, where they thenencouraged one another in their artistic pursuits and grewin confidence. After school Sylvia initially attended the SladeSchool of Art in London, but as war had by then broken outshe soon afterwards joined up, and served in the Wrens until1945. As a dispatch rider, she rode a heavy Nortonmotorcycle back and forth between London and Dover and alongthe south coast, often during heavy air raids. With the return of peace, she resumed her art studiesat the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, andthere met her future husband, Michael Goaman, whom shemarried in 1950, and with whom she went on to form theirenduring design studio partnership. The stamp design work took off as countries around theworld, in particular those of the Commonwealth and varioussmall island archipelagos, became eager to establish andpromote their identities, and to have their unique flora andfauna presented invitingly on their stamps. For a Falkland Islands issue of 1968 she designed 14botanical stamps, each one featuring a different, anddifferently coloured, flowering plant. For a Belize issue of1969 she created a set featuring the country's indigenousorchids, the plants' gorgeously coloured blooms seeming toreach out of each rectangular stamp. Other commissions camefrom Jamaica, British Honduras, the Cayman Islands, Malawi,the British Indian Ocean Territory and elsewhere. Earlier in her career Sylvia Goaman had produced manytextile designs, and she put her expertise in that field togood use as a stamp designer, searching for ways tore-create glowing colours from the limited palette allowedby the printing process. During the 1980s the Goamansretired from London to the New Forest, and there Sylvia'screativity flourished in new directions. Inspired by thebeauty of her surroundings, she produced designs for limitededition prints; and, having become known locally for theirdesign capabilities, she and her husband were asked todesign a stained glass window for their local church atBramshaw. Sylvia's flair, honed in her work on stamps, formaking the most of a small colour palette within a confineddesign-brief meant that she loved the challenge of producingwindow designs. She went on to produce designs for severalprivate houses, and wished she had discovered this mediumearlier in her life. Perhaps the crowning glory of her retirement years washer design for Bramshaw's millennium tapestry. Drawing onher expertise in textile design, she produced a richlycoloured composition full of local interest. Sylvia Goamanis survived by her husband and their three daughters.