The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum announces that the Georgia O’Keeffe painting entitled “Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II, 1930” is part of a brand new series of stamps issued in March by the United States Postal Service featuring the work of twelve important American modern artists. A treasure of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the painting will be installed and unveiled in the first gallery of the Museum on April 19 at 10:00 am in a free event to commemorate the honor; Rob Kret, director of the O’Keeffe Museum, Carolyn Kastner, curator, and Erik Setter, USPS representative will all speak. (To RSVP to attend the unveiling, email lisa(at)jlhmedia(dot)com)
The Modern Art in America, 1913 – 1931 stamps and their artists were honored at a ceremony with USPS and Armory officials in New York on March 7, taking place one hundred years after the first Armory Show, a groundbreaking international exhibition, which offered many a first look at modern art.
“We are very honored to have the work of O’Keeffe as part of this important series of stamps honoring Modern American artists,” said Kret. “We are looking forward to showing off this vibrant painting and think it will be a fine addition to the mail crisscrossing our nation each day.”
“The Postal Service began issuing postage stamps more than 150 years ago and we understand the power in these miniature works of art to celebrate American heritage history and culture,” said Uluski. “These vivid stamps, a lasting tribute to 12 amazingly talented artists, will grace letters and packages sent to millions of households and businesses throughout the country.”
Georgia O’Keeffe painted Out Back of Marie’s II in 1930, during her second summer in New Mexico, when she stayed in Alcalde as a guest at the H and M Ranch, owned by her friend Marie Tudor Garland. It represents a very small section of the landscape, which O’Keeffe isolated from the vast panorama of mountains, hills, and cliffs she saw west of the ranch. In the years that followed, O’Keeffe became famous for visualizing the particularities of the New Mexico topography, color, and light. These paintings are her enduring contribution to an identifiable American modernism in the 1930s.
The masterpieces reproduced on the Modern Art in America stamps include House and Street (1931), Stuart Davis; I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold (1928), Charles Demuth; The Prodigal Son (1927), Aaron Douglas; Fog Horns (1929), Arthur Dove; Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), Marcel Duchamp; Painting, Number 5 (1914-15), Marsden Hartley; Sunset, Maine Coast (1919), John Marin; Razor (1924), Gerald Murphy; Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico/Out Back of Marie’s II (1930), Georgia O’Keefe; Noire et Blanche (1926), Man Ray; American Landscape (1930), Charles Sheeler; and Brooklyn Bridge (1919-20), Joseph Stella. Art director Derry Noyes worked on the stamp pane with designer Margaret Bauer. To learn more about the stories behind the stamps, visit beyondtheperf.com.
The Modern Art in America, 1931 – 1931 commemorative First-Class Mail Forever stamps are 46 cents each and are offered in panes of 12 stamps, priced at $5.52 per pane.
Customers may purchase the Modern Art in America, 1913 – 1931 stamps at usps.com/stamps, at 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724) and at Post Offices nationwide.