Postage stamps are undoubtedly the category of ephemera most widely collected today. Stamps tell important stories about the countries that issue them, and it is a singular honor when a person or event is commemorated with an official postage stamp. Stamps that feature works of art transcend art audiences and touch major historical or cultural currents.
Pop artist Robert Indiana’s Love was a visual icon of late 1960’s America. The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC completed in late 1982, on the other hand, marked the concluding chapter of one of America’s most controversial and troubling wars. It was the first public work by Maya Lin who continues to maintain an important art-world presence.
Fifty Love stamps with a Polaroid photograph of Robert Indiana signing the sheet, 1991
Sheet of fifty Love 8 cent stamps, signed by Robert Indiana, photo by Todd Brassner, 1991
Robert Indiana (1928-2018) created Love in 1965 as a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 he reconfigured the image into a public sculpture of which there are now over 50 versions. The Love stamp, issued on Valentine’s Day in 1973, had an initial printing of 320 million stamps! Indiana signed this sheet in 1991 for art collector Todd Brassner, owner of the first Love painting.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial postage stamps, signed by artist Maya Lin, 1984
Sheet of forty Vietnam Veterans Memorial 20 cent stamps, signed by Maya Lin, 1984.
Size: 9 x 10 inches
Maya Lin was still an undergraduate student when she won the national design competition for the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The selection of the 21-year-old Lin generated a great deal of publicity, but demanded modesty and deference to the veterans that the monument and stamp commemorated. It is not likely that Lin signed many of these sheets. This rare example was signed at the request of a friend around the time the stamp was issued in 1984.
