# 4748j - 2013 First-Class Forever Stamp - Modern Art in America: Gerald Murphy's "Razor"

Issue Date: March 7, 2013
City: New York, NY

Quantity: 1,950,000
Printed By: Avery Dennison
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cut 10 1/2
Color: multicolored

Gerald Murphy’s painting Razor is one of twelve featured on the Modern Art in America: 1913-1931 stamps.

 

Part of an elite circle of painters, writers, and socialites in the early 1900s, Gerald Murphy painted for less than 10 years. But in that time, he produced 13 paintings (only seven of which survive) that established him as a leading modernist painter and pop artist long before that movement began.

 

The early years of Murphy’s (1888-1964) life were spent being groomed to join the family business – as a board member of his father’s leather goods company. It was not until he married his wife, Sara, and moved to Paris in 1921, that Murphy discovered his artistic talents. Upon seeing an exhibition of work by Picasso, Braque, and others, he was inspired to paint. 

 

Murphy briefly studied with a Futurist artist and then painted sets for a ballet before starting his own works. An adaptation of Cubism and Dadaism, his work features crisp, hard edges, unique arrangements, and subdued colors. His semi-abstract works pictured machinery, common objects, and architecture.

 

Murphy’s painting career was cut short in 1929 when Murphy’s son was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Though he reportedly never picked up a paintbrush again, his legacy continues to live on through his remaining works. His impact was such that his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald included Murphy and his wife as characters in the novel Tender is the Night.