American Treasures: For the Sake of Joy

U.S. postage stamps honor significant people, major events, and lasting achievements. Yet sometimes, people just want beautiful stamps.

“There is a cry we hear all the time,” says Terry McCaffrey, manager of stamp development. “We hear it today, we heard it 20 years ago: ‘We want pretty stamps, colorful stamps — something attractive to put on our mail.’”

Often, the most striking stamps are the larger-format commemoratives — not the more common (and usually smaller) “mail-use” stamps, called definitives. But the subject matter for commemorative stamps is typically tied to a person, holiday, or anniversary. When buying stamps for postage, many customers opt for the more generic imagery of mail-use stamps, bypassing the commemorative options.

But one stamp broke the mold. The 1996 Georgia O’Keeffe stamp, which featured Red Poppy No. VI, 1928, sold more than other commemoratives of the time. This prompted a question for the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee as it planned future stamps: Why not issue a series of beautiful stamps — not tied to any holiday or person but a celebration of the best in American art?

So, in 2001, the Postal Service issued the first of the American Treasures stamps, and the series continues in 2010 with its ninth issuance: a work by Winslow Homer, one of the most influential American painters of the late 19th and early 20th century.

“First and foremost, the purpose is to be popular,” says Derry Noyes, art director for the series. “We are providing beautiful stamps of beautiful art from worthy artists — for the sake of joy, more than anything. It’s not to teach a lesson as much as give joy from something beautiful on an envelope.”

Beginning with a celebration of Amish quilts, the series has represented an ongoing tour of American creativity, ranging from tapestry to detailed oil painting, from stained glass to vast, Western landscapes.

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Selecting images for the series is challenging: Some beautiful art just doesn’t reduce well to stamp size, and cropping artwork to make it fit the stamp shape is often prohibited by museums or owners.

Another unique challenge is posed by the fact that some of the stamps in the American Treasures collection bear the names of the artists. Thus the artists themselves become “stamp subjects” and, per USPS policy, must be deceased for at least five years before appearing on a stamp. This eliminates any possibility for the typical collaboration between an art director and the stamp artist.

Still, the task is a joy for Noyes. “It’s on my mind all the time. I’m always looking," she says. “I want to make sure that we are going for the highest caliber of art — but it must have broad appeal.”

The Winslow Homer stamp, which shows two barefoot boys reclining in a summer’s pasture, meets both criteria. “It’s sort of a universally appealing image,” Noyes says. “If you don’t live that way, wouldn’t you want to?”

Over the years, the American Treasures series has brought the beauty and appeal of American artistry to the mail stream. And by making great art familiar and accessible — affixed to many thousands of envelopes — it has also spread some joy.