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# US Postal Service Releases Vibrant Ellsworth Kelly Stamp Collection
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/us-postal-service-releases-vibrant-ellsworth-kelly-stamp-collection/
- Published: 2019-02-26T20:53:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:08:55.000Z
- Description: The stamps feature tiny reproductions of ten paintings by Kelly, one of America's great 20th-century abstractionists.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: In Brief, Ellsworth Kelly, Stamps, USPS, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:34 (2019, 2020, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2019/02/ellsworthkelly2019.jpg)

The Ellsworth Kelly stamp collection (image courtesy of USPS)

The US Postal Service is releasing [a new collection of stamps honoring Ellsworth Kelly](https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2019/0425-usps-honors-ellsworth-kelly-with-stamps.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com), one of America’s great 20th-century abstractionists, who [died](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly-artist-who-mixed-european-abstraction-into-everyday-life-dies-at-92.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) at age 92 in 2015.

Kelly, who worked as a designer of camouflage patterns while in the Army, was known for his vibrant, hard-edged color fields. “I’m not a geometric artist,” he once [insisted](https://www.csmonitor.com/1996/1210/121096.feat.arts.1.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), despite his frequent use of crisp geometric shapes. “Geometry is moribund. I want a lilt and joy to art. My forms are geometric, but they don’t interact in a geometric sense. They’re just forms that exist everywhere, even if you don’t see them.”

The stamps feature tiny reproductions of ten of Kelly’s candy-colored paintings: *Yellow White* (1961), *Colors for a Large Wall* (1951), *Blue Red Rocker* (1963), *Spectrum I* (1953), *South Ferry* (1956), *Blue Green* (1962), *Orange Red Relief (for Delphine Seyrig)* (1990), *Meschers* (1951), *Red Blue* (1964), and *Gaza* (1956). 

In 2007, Kelly’s painting *Spectrum VI (in 13 parts)* (1969) [sold](https://news.artnet.com/market/ellsworth-kelly-auction-market-low-399471?ref=hyperallergic.com) for $5.2 million at auction. At 55 cents apiece, these stamps are a bargain.