Slieve na Brock by Colin Middleton

Slieve na Brock by Colin Middleton
9p Stamp issued 1971 - United Kingdom

Middleton (1910-1983) trained at the Belfast Academy of Art and was heavily influenced by the work of Vincent van Gogh.  His artwork was quite surreal in many respects.  In addition to being an artist, he was also a musician, theatre designer and poet.  In 1969 he was awarded an MBE and appointed an associate at the Royal Hibernian Academy, with full membership in 1970.

His work was one of three paintings in the Ulster '71 Festival stamp series:

Deer's Meadow by Thomas Carr

Deer's Meadow by Thomas Carr
7p Stamp issued 1971 United Kingdom

Carr was taught at the Slade School of Fine Art in London after selling an initial landscape painting in a local hotel during a three week holiday in Cassis, in the South of France. Commercially successful, this Northern Irish artist shunned adstractionism that was popular in the early stages of his career.  For much of his life he was a teacher and artist, living in the countryside of Northern Ireland in addition to living in Belfast from 1955.

This is one of three landscape paintings by Northern Irish artists that featured in an "Ulster '71 Festival" stamp issue:
TP Flanagan - A Mountain Road
Colin Midleton - Slieve na Brock

A Mountain Road by TP Flanagan

A Mountain Road, by TP Flanagan (1929-2011)
UK 3p Stamp issued 1971

TP Flanagan made a large contribution to the arts during his long career in Northern Ireland in the mid 20th century.  As well and being a teacher at the St Mary's Training College in Belfast until retirement in 1983, he had a parallel career as a professional artist in oils and watercolours was quietly flourishing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with awards, exhibitions, honours, a television film (TP Flanagan: Painter).

He and his family were close friends with the famous Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, who was quoted as saying: "As an artist, Flanagan has gone his own way, explored the Irish landscape and enhanced Irish landscape painting through the discovery andelaboration of an individual style."


This stamp is one of a series of three "Ulster Paintings" from the Ulster '71 festival on 16 June 1971:
Colin Middleton
Tom Carr

The Secret Assembly of Vostitsa by Kostas Klouvatos

The Secret Assembly of Vostitsa by Kostas Klouvatos (1923-2007)
Greece Stamp Issued 1975
Folk Art

This is an engraving by an artist who is more known for his sculptures.  Klouvatos' work during the 1960s was focused on critical points in the history of Greece.  This one focuses on 26th September of 1820, where all dignitaries of Peloponnese (Moreas) gathered, and Pappaflessas (a Greek Revolutionary hero) is trying to convince them that a revolution should be launched.  Klouvatos attempted to combine elements of Greek tradition with various styles through the ages, thus accounting for this depiction of Pappa Flessas.  The stamp was part of a series that commemorated the 150th Anniversary of the death of Papa Flessas.

Pablo Picasso - La Vie

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) - La Vie (1903)
Equatorial Guinea Stamp Issued 1973
Painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art USA

Pablo Picasso went through a period where most of his work consisted of monochrome greens or blues.  This is one of his most famous works during that period - there is an overwhelming sense of desolation in this work.  This period of blue desolation was common in Picasso's work following suicide by one of his friends, Carlos Casagemas, in Paris in 1901.

Picasso was only 20 when he completed this painting.  His paintings would depart radically from European convention from 1907 starting with the Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.  This would lead him into being one of the most famous figures of the modern art world.

Mother and Sick Child is another one of his desolate depressing works through this period, which was fittingly used as a stamp by the Maldives when Picasso died in 1973.

Other Picasso works on Stamps:
Seated Nude

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.

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.

Pablo Picasso - Mother and Sick Child

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) - Mother and Sick Child (1903)
Maldives Stamp Issued 1974
Painting held at the Barcelona Museum, Spain

This is one of Picasso's earlier works, well before he started to mix up peoples faces.  The Maldives is a beautiful group of tropical islands that are stretched intermittently across the Indian Ocean to the south of India.  As the highest point of the Maldives is only 2 metres above sea level, it is one of the most threatened countries if sea levels do rise.  They also issue stamps on many topics that have no relation to the Maldives as a way of raising revenue for the country. 

Other works by Picasso have been used on stamps, including:

Seated Nude, 1905
La Vie, 1903

Vladimir Dimitrov - View of Istanbul

Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1961) - View of Istanbul
Bulgaria cm13 Stamp Issued 1982

I've not been able to determine the exact location or timeframe for the creation of this rather abstract view of Istanbul, although this work comes from a highly regarded artist from Bulgaria.  This is one of 5 stamps that were issued in his honour in 1982.  The artist was at his peak in the 1920s and 1930s.

Vladimir Dimitrov - Majstora (Master)

Vladimir Dimitrov (1882-1960) - Majstora (Master) 
Bulgaria cm25 Stamp Issued 1982 
Vladimir Dimitrov Art Gallery Kjustendil

This is one of five stamps issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of this artist's birth, as  he is considered to be one of the most accomplished Bulgarian artists of the 20th Century.  This work contains elements of socialist realism, that was popular through Eastern Europe at the time, and depicted on many Eastern European stamps in the 1960s to 1980s.

Roy de Maistre - Still Life, Zannias

Roy de Maistre - Still Life, Zannias (1930)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Held at the National Gallery of Victoria

This is an early piece of work by one of Australia's most successful overseas artists, Roy de Maistre.  Although he was successful within Australia, De Maistre would later go on to live in London, where some of his work would eventually be purchased by the Tate Gallery and he would be commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral.  

He has an interest in the harmonisation of music and colour throughout his life.  The artists was originally studying music, but he suffered badly from tuberculosis at many stages of his life, eventually causing him to concentrate of painting.

Vida Lahey - Fruit and Flowers

Vida Lahey (1882-1968) - Fruit and Flowers (1924)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Vida Lahey was one of Australia's most successful female artists.  Born in Brisbane, she went on to study in Melbourne at the National Gallery School before heading off to Europe in the late 1910s.  This was probably where she developed an interest in still life art, as she travelled to the Netherlands at this time.

Lahey returned to her home town of Brisbane at a time when Brisbane was not known for its interest in cultural or artistic pursuits, remaining there until she passed away in 1968.

Nora Heysen - A Bunch of Flowers

Nora Heysen (1911-2003) - A Bunch of Flowers (1930)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Nora Heysen was the fourth child of Hans Heysen, who was one of Australia's most famous war artists in World War I.  Nora also became an artist, studying in Adelaide, before going on to become the first woman to win the Archibald Prize in 1938.  She also followed her father as a war artist, completing 170 works of art in WWII.


This is one of her still life works, issued as part of a series of still life works of flowers by Australia Post in 2011.

Arnold Shore - Camellias

Arnold Stone (1897-1963) - Camellias (1937)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued
Held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

This is the first of five 2011 stamps that have been issued by Australia Post, showing five works of still life art from the National Gallery of Victoria.  They have been gathered from the heyday of still life art that was taking place in the 1920s and 1930s in Australia.   

Arnold Stone was born in Melbourne and he was trained as an artists by Frederick McCubbin during the early stages of his career.  They parted ways, and eventually he went on to run a school in Melbourne with Max Meldrum, were they taught student modernist principles in painting.

Two Against White - Charles Sheeler

Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) - Two Against White (1957)
USA 32c Stamp issued 1998

Sheeler's works are stark - they are defined by clean lines, urban expanses, but there are very few people.   - he is known as one of the founders of modernism in art in America.  The work that was depicted in this 1998 stamp was reasonably abstract, but many of his works are very realistic depictions of buildings and interiors that are absent of any people, and idealised in an almost dream like manner - it is like you are looking at a perfectly sparse place in a dream, rather than a real place that has imperfections.  An Australian artist, Jeffrey Smart, appears to paint in a similar manner, but his paintings include many solitary figures.


He was also a pioneer in completing artworks across different emerging media in the early 20th century, as he worked with film and photography in addition to painting.

Edward Hopper - Nighthawks

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) -  Nighthawks (1942)
USA 32c Stamp Issued 1998
Art Institute of Chicago

This is one of many artworks that appeared in a 1998 series of stamps issued in the USA.  Nighthawks is an instantly recognisable artwork that was popular since it was created in 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The work is quite sinister in it's tone - conveying a certain emptiness about life in the 20th century - bright loud colours, garish accessories and dress, people huddled under florescent light, while darkness envelopes the deserted streets.  This piece was also used as a base for The Boulevarde of Broken Dreams poster that was popularised in the 1980s - the figures from this painting were replaced by Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marilyn Munroe.

Grant Wood - American Gothic

Grant Wood (1891-1942) - American Gothic (1930)
USA 32c Stamp Issued 1998
Art Institute of Chicago

This is probably one of the most famous images of America in the 20th Century - a hard working farmer and his spinster daughter pose in front of their gothic style house somewhere in the mid west of America.  This art carries a number of symbols of 20th century America that are both honoured and subject to criticism.  This work has been parodied ever since it was created in the 1930s.

Apparently the house does really exist in a town called Eldon in Iowa.  The painting was part of a art movement known as regionalism - it rejected the abstract art that was rocking the art world at the same time in Europe.   Paintings such as American Gothic certainly capture the viewer, with its strong characters, who communicate with the viewer.

Brian Dunlop - Queen Elizabeth II

Brian Dunlop (1938-2009) - Royal Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1984)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Painting Held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Brian Dunlop was a prolific and successful Australian still life and portrait painter of the modern age.  This painting was commissioned in 1984 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the state of Victoria in Australia, and it was donated to the National Gallery of Victoria in the same year.


Australia continues to issue Queen's Birthday stamps around June each year, as a long weekend holiday is still observed, even though it is not really the Queen's Birthday!  

Dame Nellie Melba Portrait - Rupert Bunny

Portrait of Dame Nellie Melba - Rupert Bunny (1902)
Australia 60c Stamp Issued 2011
Painting held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 

This stamp has been issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dame Nellie Melba, the famous opera singer from the late 19th century.  Melba had a long and successful career, and a very interesting personal life as she mixed with dukes and famous people throughout Europe.  To this day, her name is remembered through a common dessert - Peach Melba - in addition to having a Canberra suburb named after her.  


Melba's portrait was completed by one of Australia's most popular artists at the height of both their careers. She was also the first Australian woman to be depicted on an Australian stamp back in 1961.

Dame Nellie Melba - 1961 5d Stamp Australia

Celia Rosser - Golden Wattle

Celia Rosser - Golden Wattle (1989)
Australia 41c Stamp issued 1990
Illustration

The golden wattle is a common sight throughout many regions of Australia, particularly when it is flowering along the roadsides and railways of New South Wales and Victoria.  Although wattles are also found in Africa and parts of North America, in 1891 there was a push to adopt a flower as a national emblem, even before Australia became a federation in 1901.  In 1988 Acacia pyncantha was finally adopted as the national flower.


Celia Rosser is a well known botanical artist, particularly known for her studies of banksias.  She has a gallery in Victoria. This stamp is one of many botanical illustrations that are traditionally depicted on Australian stamps, given the uniqueness of Australian flora.