David Gentleman: artist and stamp designer

Written by Stuart Aitken and posted on the Postal Museum website.

The author gracefully sums up the artist’s life in the article’s subheader: “With 103 issued stamps and countless additional designs to his name, David Gentleman’s work masterfully blends contrasting techniques, unified by his distinctive and unmistakable style.”

Read how David Gentleman started designing British stamps in the 1960s and how he and the Postmaster General, Tony Benn, “…embarked on an endeavour to widen the scope of stamps and, controversially, to remove the Queen’s head from them altogether. The rationale was as an artistic objection to the problem of producing a design around the dominating presence of the Queen’s profile image (the Wilding portrait).”

Stuart Aitken says, “The culmination of this work was David’s album of experimental designs, which we regard as a treasured item in The Postal Museum’s collection. The designs cover a myriad of ideas, styles and concepts including transport, landscapes, insects, fungi, and architecture. Some of the themes were later expanded and used for future stamp issues, but some simply remained conceptual.”

Read the whole story here: https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/david-gentleman-artist-and-stamp-designer

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