Comments on: U.S. Puts Abstract Expressionists on Stamps

By: Arlene Leibs

Arlene Leibs — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 20:30:47 +0000

How do I buy these stamps? My post office does not have them.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:40:57 +0000

Um, not to throw gas on the fire, but I’ve got a little list, too. Just to start, there’s Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Ed Clark, Beauford Delaney, Herb Gentry, Norman Lewis, and Hale Woodruff, along with Peg Alston, Alma Thomas, Louise Nevelson, and Georgia O’Keefe, for God’s sake. Some might not be in the canon as the real abstract expressionists, but for heaven’s sake, they were/are abstract as hell, and certainly expressive!

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:26:28 +0000

I just got the stamps today. Frankly only the Newman, Rothko, Pollack, and Motherwell have coherence as stamps. I love de Kooning but they should have picked a different one. It looks too much like the Pollack (which was pretty much de Kooning’s issue anyway). The others are nonsense.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:23:51 +0000

Robert Hughes described Frankenthaler’s work as “intellectual prettiness.” Not too artful a take on her. If you hold Gorky to be a precurser she was a postcurser. Gottlieb…crucial? For what: fake hieroglyphs? Please. It was supposed to be some expression of a Jungian primitive sign language. Maybe if enough post-feminists rewrite history Lee Krasner can come out from behind Pollack for overblown recognition of her own minor career.
Is someone trying to propose that there were first generation AbExers of color? If wishes were fishes…

By: UPS!

UPS! — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:16:02 +0000

Better late than never

By: hv

hv — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:07:29 +0000

Black? That seems excessive…maybe unbleached white?

By: Joanne Mattera

Joanne Mattera — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:25:11 +0000

P.S. For the next round, when prices increase (again), how about a series of Minimalist stamps? They could be all black, Nothing on them. Just peel, stick and post.

By: Joanne Mattera

Joanne Mattera — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:22:30 +0000

I don’t notice any artists of color in there, either. Without Mitchell they could have kept it all white and all male. That was the ideal back then, wasn’t it?

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:11:59 +0000

Gottlieb deserves to be on there, as does Newman, But they really should have picked better paintings from their “MATURE” style. And I too think Krasner should be on there other than Mitchell, but Mitchell is more well known to people who don’t know painting. It’s not for us to decide to does or doesn’t belong in there. This was done by the USPS of all places. And they know as much about modern painting as a farmer in Biloxi.

By: hv

hv — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:04:15 +0000

I think Gorky is a precursor, not an AbExers but he’s still crucial. I never liked the idea of Newman. I think Gottlieb is crucial. David Smith would’ve been good but I don’t know what I feel about him as an AbExers, I’ve always been a bit ambivalent. I thought of Frankenthaler, but I think it would be a disservice to include her in this group since she was really about a lot of other things.