What:

The U.S. Postal Service will celebrate the career of artist Ellsworth Kelly with the issuance of 10 stamps celebrating his talent as a painter and sculptor. With these stamps, the Postal Service showcases examples of his wide-ranging body of work.

The first-day-of-issue event is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtags #EllsworthKelly and #EllsworthKellyStamps.

Who:

Steven W. Monteith, vice president, marketing, U.S. Postal Service
Jack Shear, Ellsworth Kelly Foundation

When:

Friday, May 31, 2019, at 11 a.m. EDT

Where:

Ellsworth Kelly Studio
Spencertown, NY 12165

RSVP:

Dedication ceremony attendees are encouraged to RSVP at usps.com/ellsworthkelly.

Background:

Characterized by precise shapes rendered in bold, flat colors, Ellsworth Kelly’s art encompasses painting, sculpture and works on paper, drawing on careful observations of light and shadow, negative space and line and form. In painting shapes—like a tennis court, a smokestack on a tugboat, or the roof of a barn—as flat planes of color, Kelly removed their dimensionality and turned reality into abstraction. He was also one of the first artists to create shaped canvases and to integrate art with modern architecture, taking great care about the size of a painting, its boundaries, and its placement in relation to the walls and floor.

The 20 stamps on the sheet feature 10 of Kelly’s artworks, each represented twice: “Yellow White” (1961), “Colors for a Large Wall” (1951), “Blue Red Rocker” (1963), “Spectrum I” (1953), “South Ferry” (1956), “Blue Green” (1962), “Orange Red Relief” (for Delphine Seyrig) (1990), “Meschers” (1951), “Red Blue” (1964), and “Gaza” (1956). A detail from “Blue Yellow Red III” (1971) appears in the selvage.

Art Director Derry Noyes designed the stamps.

The Ellsworth Kelly stamps are being issued as Forever stamps and will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shop, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724), by mail through USA Philatelic or at Post Office locations nationwide.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

###