Interview with Kazuhiko Sano

Kazuhiko Sano was born in 1952 in Tokyo, Japan. He currently teaches illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and his work has been widely exhibited around the world. Kazu first worked on the Celebrate the Century® 1970s pane in the ‘90s, then more recently Henry W. Longfellow (2006), Charles Chesnutt (2007), Frank Sinatra (2007) and Gary Cooper (2009). You can visit his Web site at: http://www.kazusano.com
Bob Hope® Hope Enterprises, Inc.

BEYOND THE PERF: How does your normal process of beginning a new work of art change when you work on a stamp?

KAZU SANO: For a stamp project, the learning stage is the same as any other work of art: I study references, read articles, watch footage, talk with experts in the fields and visit museums, among other things. The more I know the subject, the clearer the image or the concept becomes.

But with stamps, I often think about the medium and size as well. Becoming a U.S. stamp is an honor for the subject. And it’s a huge honor and responsibility for me as the artist.

BTP: What were some challenges you faced in developing the Bob Hope stamp artwork?

KS: We all remember how Hope talked and moved: in motion. For comedians, talking, joking and making people laugh is an art form. As a painter, it’s difficult to freeze that fluid moment. And I knew Hope had an overwhelming amount of fans looking forward to seeing the stamp.

Art director Derry Noyes and I worked together to choose appropriate photographs [on which to base the painting]. I started with three different sketches to test how well I could capture his face. I did a younger Bob Hope, a formal Bob Hope and a personal Bob Hope.

Concentrating all that meaning in a tiny stamp size and still carrying the aesthetic beauty is something totally new.

The dignity of this well-known, older comedian was hard to capture in a painting. I did additional sketches for his smile and eyes and the famous sloping nose. The surviving family preferred the formal Hope with the bow tie and three-quarter view, so that’s the sketch that made it to the final stage.

By the time I started to paint Hope, I felt I knew his face and expression so fully it was as if I had met him.

BTP: Have you learned anything new from the work you’ve done on stamps?

KS: Most of the time, subjects that appear on this ephemeral art have enormous [cultural] meaning behind them. So designing a U.S. stamp is like creating an icon — full of symbolism. I have never dealt with that kind of lasting power before, even having done best-selling book covers and works for National Geographic. Concentrating all that meaning in a tiny stamp size and still carrying the aesthetic beauty is something totally new.