Abstract Expressionists: Embracing the Intuitive

“The function of the artist is to express reality as felt.”

These words from Robert Motherwell appear at the top of the Abstract Expressionists pane, and they might well describe the intuitive approach adopted by stamp designer and art director Ethel Kessler.

During the 1940s and 1950s, abstract expressionists revolutionized the art world with a new visual language. Although their styles were radically different — from still, luminescent fields of color to vigorous, almost violent, slashes of paint — these artists shared a belief that their purpose was not to copy nature but to allow personal intuition and the unconscious to guide their choice of imagery.

So from the outset, Kessler sensed that she did not want a typical arrangement — rows of uniform, interlocking stamps. During creative explorations, Kessler rejected suggestions to align the stamps. “It was about reflecting the spirit of the artists,” she explains, “not being a designer dictating structure on top of the art. If you systematize, you run counter to the essence of abstract expressionism.”

Kessler chose to approach the pane design almost as if hanging paintings on a gallery wall, creating stamps of different shapes and sizes, and surrounding each with white space. “I didn’t want these images knocking up against each other,” she says. “Space was required to experience the drama and expression in the paintings; they needed breathing room.”  

Inclusion of so much white space proved both problematic and liberating. Problematic, because it meant that fewer stamps could be included in the pane. Kessler recalls asking noted art historian Jonathan Fineberg to narrow his carefully selected field of subjects. “We started with, ‘Well, what if you could only show 20?’ And then it was, ‘Well, what if you could only show 10?’”

Yet fewer stamps also allowed Kessler one thing she instinctively felt was important: dramatic size. A common trait of abstract expressionism was the use of large canvases, and Kessler wanted that notion of scale expressed in the stamps.

Despite the inherent production challenges of nonconforming formats, postal officials were persuaded by Kessler’s vision and gave her the green light.

In the end, while the Arshile Gorky stamp (1.59 x 1.32 inches)* is essentially semi-jumbo, five of the 10 stamps on the pane — Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko — are jumbo format (1.43 x 1.98 inches),* which is the largest and least-used from the library of stamp templates. Only one of the two square stamps, Hans Hofmann, is the standard square size (1.25 x 1.25 inches).* The second, Willem de Kooning, is oversized (1.55 x 1.55 inches).*

But Kessler went further, abandoning the stamp templates for an even grander scale. Two of the stamps — Jackson Pollock (2.53 x 1.77 inches)* and Robert Motherwell (2.169 x 1.99 inches)* — rival the 1997 Mars Rover Sojourner (3 x 1.5 inches, Priority Mail rate), which was the largest U.S. stamp ever produced for regular postage. Jackson Pollock is certainly the largest single U.S. stamp design ever issued bearing the First-Class rate.

* Measurements reflect the maximum limits of the serpentine die cut.

In a final evocation of the spirit of abstract expressionism, Kessler wanted the viewer to sense the act of painting. She enlarged the left and right sides of the Barnett Newman image, then placed them on the left and right sides of the pane, creating the effect of two strong, irregular, painted black edges. “I wanted to bring the brushstrokes up to a scale that allowed the viewer to see the hand of the artist,” she explains.

The abstract expressionists revolutionized art during their heyday — expressing complicated ideas and primitive emotions in simplified, abstract form. Now, more than a half-century later, their works are available for collection by the public — as stamps. And due in no small part to Kessler’s efforts, they can truly be both seen and felt.

View a slideshow of the stamps and read about the artists.