Now this is hot news: a reason to like the Post Office!
As of Thursday, American stamps will carry the works of 10 abstract expressionists, in a new series of commemoratives. Better yet, the U.S. Postal Service, in the form of senior vice president Linda Kingsley and others, is venturing to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo to make the announcement in a first-day-of-issue ceremony with its director, Louis Grachos.
How did the Albright-Knox snare this honor?
Four paintings from its collection — The Liver Is The Cock’s Comb by Arshile Gorky, Convergence by Jackson Pollock, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 by Robert Motherwell and Orange and Yellow by Mark Rothko — were chosen by the 15-member Citizens’ Stamps Advisory Committee. That’s more than any other museum, obviously!
The other honored artists are Joan Mitchell, Hans Hoffman, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. Here’s a look:
According to the USPS,
…art director Ethel Kessler and noted art historian Jonathan Fineberg (Gutgsell Professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) selected ten paintings to feature on this colorful pane of self-adhesive stamps. Kessler used elements from Barnett Newman’s Achilles (1952) to frame the stamps. The arrangement of the stamps suggests paintings hanging on a gallery wall. For design purposes the sizes of the stamps are not in relative proportion to the paintings.
Congrats to the Albright-Knox, which can use some good news. (Its next big exhibition, The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal 1941-1960, which I wrote about here, opens on Mar. 19.)
We as a nation, need to see more art — everywhere — and you can help by buying these stamps, starting Thursday. The USPS pays attention to sales, I am told.
UPDATE, 3/11: Here’s a link to the press release, which has more details.
Photo Credit: USPS and Albright-Knox Art Gallery