A new Postal Service video highlights the recent dedication ceremony for the Ellsworth Kelly stamp pane.
Kelly (1923-2015) is hailed as a pioneer of abstraction thanks to the distinctive use of shapes and color in his art. The stamp pane features some of his best-known works.
The ceremony was held in Kelly’s former studio in Spencertown, NY.
“Ellsworth would be so … well, he’d be appalled to have this many people in his studio,” Jack Shear, Kelly’s husband and director of the foundation named in his honor, says to laughter during the video.
“But I think he would be really happy to be here — and he is here — and so that’s sort of wonderful.”
Also during the 1-minute video, Ian Alteveer, an associate curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, discusses how stamps sparked his interest in art.
“I believe to some degree my own experience, my own career as a curator, might somehow be connected to those little stamps I used to collect so avidly as a child and amass in albums as if they were their own miniature picture gallery,” he says.