Vida Lahey - Beach Umbrellas

Vida Lahey (1882-1968) - Beach Umbrellas (1933)
Australia $1.20 Stamp Issued 1995
Queensland Art Gallery

Vida Lahey was Queensland born, although she studied in London before WWI and lived in Paris afterwards, training at Colarossi's Academy.  As a modernist artist in Australia at the time, she was instrumental in promoting the arts on Queensland and supporting the Queensland Art Gallery.  This is one of many colourful paintings that depicts Australian beach and seaside life that is typical of Queensland and northern New South Wales - there is plenty of colour and light.

Lahey was also trained by Frederick McCubbin.  Lahey's painting "Fruit and Flowers" was used for another stamp in 2011.

John Le Capelain - Jersey Landscapes #5

John le Capelain (1812-1846) - Countryside landscape scene
Jersey Stamp issued 1987

John le Capelain was a self taught painter who was popular during his lifetime in Jersey.  In 1846 his paintings were included in a book that was presented to Queen Victoria and he was commissioned to complete another set of landscapes on the Isle of Wight.  Unfortunately for him, he contracted tuberculosis while on the Isle of Wight, dying thereafter in 1848.

Taras Shevchenko - Kateryna

Taras Shenchenko (1814-1861) - Katerina (1842)
Russa USSR Stamp issued 1979

Shevchenko is known as the founding father of Ukrainian modern literature and language, more that his talent as an artist.  He was born into serfdom, but when his talents were discovered, the famous poet Vasily Zhukovsky bought him out of serfdom in 1838.  This portrait depicts Katerina, who was a key figure in one of his most famous poems.  She was a serf girl, who was seduced, abandoned and disgraced by a Russian soldier in the poem.  Shevchenko's art crosses between folk art and realism.

Kyriak Kostandi - Among the People

Kyriak Kostandi (1852-1921) - Among the People (1885)
Russia USSR Stamp Issued 1979
Painting Held at the National Art Museum of Ukraine

This is typical of the realistic genre paintings completed by Kostandi throughout his career.  A young peasant girl looks out the window of a crowded train, to a wider world.  There is a sense of tiredness to the girl and uncertainty in the painting overall - although the girl is among a lot of people on the train, she is the only one in the painting.  It captures a moment in time.

Kostandi was born in a town near Odessa, but he learnt his artistic trade in St Petersburg, where he went on to become a founding member of the Society of South Russian Artists.

Paul von Szinyeiv-Merse - Lovers

Paul von Szinyeiv Merse (1845-1920) - Lovers (1870)
Hungary Stamp issued 1967
Painting Held at the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

This painting is typical of Szinyeiv Merse, as it captured upper middle class people in idealised settings in the prosperous countryside.  Merse was one of the earlier impressionist artists of Hungary and Central Europe.  After being trained in Munich, Germany, he was a politician as well as an artist of Hungary.  Another Merse painting is also on this Blog: Lady in a Purple Dress .

Portrait of Lagarova by Stefan Ivanov

Stefan Ivanov by Portrait of Lagarova
Bulgaria Stamp Issued 1971

Stamp was issued within a series of 6 stamps to commemorate the opening of a new art gallery in Bulgaria in 1971.  Stefan Ivanov was born in 1875, being one of 12 siblings in a peasant family.  His early life was quite tragic as six of his brothers and sisters died.  He trained as an artist in Sofia in good art schools and he became famous for sad, melancholic works of women during a very tough time of depression and poverty in the 1920s.  He died in 1951.

Artist Unknown - Girl with Dove

Girl With Dove - Artist Unknown
Poland 90gr Stamp issued 1974
19th Century Painting

This is one of eight stamps depicting children in portrait paintings - issued by the Polish in 1974

Johannes Vermeer - The Lacemaker

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) - The Lacemaker
Fujeira Stamp Issued 1971
The Louvre, Paris France

Vermeer is one of the most famous Dutch genre painters from the 17th Century.  The majority of his works were completed in his two room home in Delft, as the same interiors are shown many times with different middle-class characters who were individual models for his paintings.  He is also known for his exquisite use of light and colour, which involved the use of very expensive and rare pigments.  Another of his works has been captured in a French stamp issue: Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Michelangelo - Scene from the Sistine Chapel Jacob

Michangelo - Sistine Chapel (Jacob) (1512)
Vatican City Stamp issued 1991
Sistine Chapel - Vatican City

The Vatican regularly issues stamps that contain scenes from the paintings that were completed on the Sistine Chapel by Michangelo, and this is one of the more modern series of stamps that were issued in the early 1990s when the chapel was being restored.  This stamp depicts one of Jesus' ancestors, who was Jacob.

Other stamps of the Sistine Chapel include:
Grenada

Adriaen Brouwer - The Slaughter House

Adriaen Brouwer (1605-1638) - Slaughter House (c. 1630)
East Germany 25 DDR Stamp Issued 1982
Staatliches Museum Schwerin

Brouwer was a Dutch Flemish genre painter whose primary interest appeared to be the goings on in the everyday lives of peasants.  All his works are colourful and almost comical.  This is one of many stamps issued in 1982 in East Germany depicting art works from the 17th Century.

Alexey Venetsianov - Harvesting

Alexey Venetsianov (1780-1847) -  Harvesting (1827).
Russia USSR Stamp Issued 1980
Summer. 1827. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Although Venetsianov did not gain a high profile from the academics in the arts community, he did enjoy relative success as an artist after a public service career from the early 1800s to 1819.  Tsar Nicholas I commissioned him for works.  The artist dies in a horse carriage accident when his carriage plunged down a cliff in 1847.  Another of his works "Oh Father's Dinner" has also been used on USSR stamps.

Artist Unknown - Medicine Story

Medicine Story (1972) - Artist Unknown
Indigenous Art of the Desert
Australia 90c Stamp Issued 1988

This is one of four stamps that were issued to show desert art by indigenous artists in the Western Desert region of the Northern Territory in Australia.  The Papunya Tula art movement gathered pace in the 1970s, and there are regular exhibits worldwide, as this form of art has gained traction with international art buyers.

Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri - Ancestor Dreaming

Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri (1929-1984) - Ancestor Dreaming (1977)
Australia $1 Stamp Issued 1988
Art of the Desert Series

This artist was one of the key figures from the Western Desert art scene that developed in the 1970s in outback Northern Territory, near Haast's Bluff.  Tjapaltjarri first worked as a stockman before moving with his wife to Papunya, where he was involved in the establishment of the artists' settlement.  The artist had earlier experience with watercolours, which makes some of his work quite different to his contemporaries.

Charles Conder - All on a Summer's Day

Charles Conder (1868-1909) - All on a Summer's Day (1888)
Australia 41c Stamp Issued 1989
Art Gallery of South Australia

Charles Conder lived in Australia for only seven years, but he was a key figure from the Heidelberg school of painting, which was responsible for the divergence of "western" Australian art in a modern sense.  This painting was completed at the time when Conder was living in Melbourne and is typical of the light filled paintings of the Australian landscape.  A woman reads a book on the beach, while another artist is also shown on a cliff top with his easel.  Conder left Australia in 1890 to go back to England, but his Australian work remains critically acclaimed.  "Holiday at Mentone" has also been used on postage stamps.