# 5212 - 2017 First-Class Forever Stamp - Andrew Wyeth Paintings

US #5212
2017 Paintings by Andrew Wyeth

• 12 stamps celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of Andrew Wyeth

Stamp Category: Commemorative
Value: 49¢ First Class Mail Rate (Forever)
First Day of Issue: July 12, 2017
First Day City: Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania
Quantity Issued: 25,200,000
Printed by: Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd.
Printing Method: Offset
Format: Panes of 12
Tagging: Nonphosphored Type III, Block Tag

Why the stamps were issued: For the 100th birth anniversary of famed American artist Andrew Wyeth.

About the stamp designs: Each stamp pictures a different painting by Andrew Wyeth: “Wind from the Sea” (1947), “Big Room” (1988), “Christina’s World” (1948), “Alvaro and Christina” (1968), “Frostbitten” (1962), “Sailor’s Valentine” (1985), “Soaring” (1942-1950), “North Light” (1984), “Spring Fed” (1967), “The Carry” (2003), “Young Bull” (1960), and “My Studio” (1974). The selvage of the pane of 12 pictures a black-and-white photograph of Andrew Wyeth from the 1930s.

First Day City: The First Day of Issue Ceremony was held in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, the location of Andrew Wyeth’s home and studio.

History the stamp represents: N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth’s father and first teacher, once told him, “To be a great artist requires emotional depth, an openness to look beyond self to the subject, and passion. A great painting then is one that enriches and broadens one’s perspective.” N.C. could never have predicted the impact those words would have on his son’s art.

Some artists create paintings that are pleasing to the eye, but whose meaning have very little depth. Andrew Wyeth, on the other hand, completely submersed himself in a subject, exploring every angle of it. His aim was to make people feel everything he felt while working on the painting. It is this skill that inspired the likes of many up-and-coming artists, including his son Jamie. Andrew Wyeth’s ability to make his viewers think is what earned his paintings a place in galleries from the Brandywine River Museum in his hometown to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Wyeth’s paintings earned him an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1955. Eight years later, he was featured on the cover of Time magazine when President Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. By the late 1980s, the selling price for Wyeth’s paintings had gone from $100,000 to over $1 million.

In 2017, the USPS honored the 100th anniversary of Andrew Wyeth’s birth with 12 new stamps. Each featured a different Wyeth painting, including the famous Christina’s World. They are just a small sampling of over 1,000 paintings Wyeth completed during his life. Regardless of how viewers interpret an Andrew Wyeth painting, each one is a piece of art they will not soon forget.