United States Postal Service
Three Stamps
James Dean never thought his watercolor of a poinsettia would be reproduced 750 million times. But that is what happened when his painting was selected from almost 5,000 others to become the U.S. Postal Service’s official Christmas stamp for 1985. A radical departure for an artist who specialized in large, airy watercolors of weathered barns, breezy seascapes, and the rustic Maine coast, it launched a brief but prolific chapter as a stamp designer.
“The difficult thing about stamp painting is whatever you paint you have to be able to read it in almost microscopic size. It requires a lot of advance careful planning. I never did anything to be reduced down to postage stamp size.”
— James Dean, The Washington Post, December 5, 1985
National Postal Museum
Christmas 1985
Poinsettia
Dean repainted the poinsettia four times before the stamp advisory committee accepted the final red and green design. Working from his studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria — overlooking the Potomac — he described the experience: “The final painting took a couple of days to get most of it done and another week of looking at it to put in the finishing touches. I’ve kind of had it with red and green.” All 750 million impressions sold out before the following year’s stamp was printed.
National Postal Museum
Centennial of the Statue of Liberty, 1986
Statue of Liberty
Issued July 4, 1986, during Liberty Weekend on Governors Island, New York, this stamp commemorated the centennial of the Statue of Liberty — a joint project between the U.S. Postal Service and the French postal administration. Dean contributed the background painting. As he told the Washington Post: “I also did the background painting for the Statue of Liberty stamp issued this summer. I’m just getting into this stamp thing.”
National Postal Museum
Christmas 1987
Ornaments on Tree
Dean’s original painting shows red, blue, and gold glass ornaments hanging from a Christmas tree, each one reflecting the room — a window, furniture — in miniature. Issued at a First Day ceremony held at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, the first time the Postal Service had held such a ceremony at the park. Nearly 978 million were printed, making it one of the most widely distributed stamps Dean ever created.
The Washington Post covered Dean’s first stamp commission in December 1985. The Postal Service, which took ownership of the copyright, stored Dean’s original poinsettia painting in its archives.
Va. Artist Puts Stamp on Christmas — The Washington Post, December 5, 1985 →
