113 years separates the USA stamp I did recently, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/12/18/usa-1893-a-columbian-exposition-brings-the-worlds-eyes-on-chicago/ , to this one today. They both were trying to do the same thing. Show the past in a patriotic way that gives hope and confidence for the future. On that stamp we sneer at the ideal “white city” even though they clearly meant less pollution not race. Here the Dutch postal service asked modern artists for pleasant renderings of Holland and that request was too much for this artist to bare. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
On one hand, there is some room to be impressed with the printing of this stamp. Getting full size works of art on stamps as small as this one must have taken some doing by the lithographer. Obviously the tiny bulk postage stamp is not an ideal venue to view art. I wonder if the decision makers were unimpressed by the quality of the art submissions and tried to lessen the embarrassment by minimizing the stamp size.
Todays stamp is issue A480, a 39 Euro Cents stamp issued by the Netherlands on January 2nd, 2006. This issue came as booklet panes of 10 self adhesive stamps. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
This stamp displays A day in Holland/Holland in a day by artist Barbara Visser. Babs was born in 1966 in Harlem(the Dutch one) and had an extensive education that spanned several countries and stretched into her thirties. Her government grants and prizes included the 30,000 Euro Charlotte Kohler Prize handed out by the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund.
When the call went out from the postal authority for modern works on Dutch subjects, Babs had the idea to pull a little trick on them. The title of the work gives off a tourism vibe and causes you to not question the presence of the Japanese couple admiring the old windmill. The painting though is not what it seems or what was requested. The windmill on the stamp is an old Dutch windmill that had been disassembled, shipped to Japan and reconstructed. It is the artist who is the tourist and not in the Netherlands.
While the stamp from 17 years ago appears to be the height of Babs art career she has other achievements. In 1995 she had a four episode arch on the Lithuanian soap opera Gimines playing herself but married to a Lithuanian/American surgeon named Steve.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in commiseration with the postal authority having been shat upon for the crime of trying to display todays well subsidized art to a broad audience. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.