[Alyson Kuhn] If you can arrange to be at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, CA on Sunday afternoon, March 22, you have a neat treat in store. Designer Terry McCaffrey, Manager of Stamp Development for the USPS, will give a gallery walk and talk in conjunction with the exhibition “Trailblazers & Trendsetters,” which presents original art for 75 US postage stamps.
The artworks on display were commissioned by the USPS for stamps over the past half century. They represent the work of 42 different artists and range in size from 3″ x 4″ to 16″ x 10″. Each artwork is shown with its finished stamp, so you can appreciate the design elements that were added – such as the elaborate “frame” on William Clark’s formal portrait by Michael Deas; the ticket stub on Laurel & Hardy’s caricature by Al Hirschfeld; and the baseball-card touches on Lou Gehrig’s action portrait by Joe Saffold.
The exhibition will be at Blackhawk until June 21. If you can’t make it to Danville, don’t despair: All 75 artworks are permanently online, with the full exhibition text {which I had the pleasure of writing}. You can also see a highly-illustrated article from STEP inside design about the original exhibition at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. It includes several photos of the exhibition, which was designed by Michael Osborne, my long-time co-instigator on postal projects.
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All stamp designs © US Postal Service. All rights reserved.
