Birds and Words, Redux

Letterology is on Fall break again this week as I am preparing for the opening of the Camp Stories, Illustrated exhibit at the University of Puget Sound Collins Library in Tacoma, this coming Saturday. Instead, I bring you re-runs of some of my favorites from the Letterology attic. Thanks for your patience!

In my mind, this set of 1959 Czechoslovakian postage stamps are some of the most beautiful I have seen. They are designed by painter, illustrator, lettering artist, teacher and stage designer Karel Svolinsky (1896-1986) and engraved by Jirka Ladislav. The illustrations of the birds with the lovely script lettering, and the high quality multi-color engravings, set these Czech stamps apart as works of art. More of Svolinsky's postage stamp artwork can be seen in two of my earlier posts here and here, and in this handsome set of original lithographed Winter solstice postcards from 1948 from the Letterology Archives.

Birds and Words

In my mind, this set of 1959 Czechoslovakian postage stamps designed by painter, illustrator, lettering artist, teacher and stage designer Karel Svolinsky (1896-1986) and engraved by Jirka Ladislav, are some of the most beautiful I've seen. The illustrations of the birds with the lovely script lettering, and the high quality multi-color engravings, set these Czech stamps apart as works of art. More of Svolinsky's postage stamp artwork can be seen in two of my earlier posts here and here, and in this set of lovely postcards in a recent post. Look for many more of his stamp designs to come in the future.

Gill on Stamp Design

Eric Gill | Notes on Postage Stamps, a 24 page book from the Kat Ran Press contains 56 full-color illustrations and an essay by Gill on his philatelic ideas and opinions. The portraits in the 2 stamps above were designed by Edmund Dulac with the lettering, crown and small ornaments by Eric Gill. This book is available for purchase from Kat Ran Press. They also keep a wonderful archive listed here of other distinguished type designers who have created postage stamps and other assorted philatelic materials. All of their names are clickable here.
:: From mrussem's Flickrsteam.

Cinderellas and the FBI

A couple of months ago I attended a local paper show and met a new dealer there with a lot of cinderella stamps. The stamps above are a couple of the cinderellas I found that day. Although he was a very knowledgeable dealer, he couldn't recall their origin. They appear to be selvedge, or a border strip at the edge of a printed sheet. In this case they are engraved with a pattern of nicely script Es, Ds, Gs and what appears to be either a cap I or a T. I am puzzled over these little stamps, but do enjoy them.
      Side story...after a lengthy conversation, I learned this paper dealer was a former undercover FBI plant during the 60s and hung out with members of the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground in order to gather information. He had some amazzzing and very convincing stories to tell about drug running and the life of an undercover agent. He could recall every detail of conversations, parties and events he attended with these political activists. Coincidently he also happened to know my father who was another FBI guy dealing with interstate bank robbers and crimestopping in that era. Our conversation made for a very entertaining afternoon of ephemera and espionage. He is now retired from the FBI and collects cars and blimp ephemera. Go figure. Below are a few more cinderellas, cancelled stamps and poster stamps I picked up from my new dealer friend that same day.

Boekenweek Revisited

The Netherlands have such a rich heritage of the book and printing and hold them both in high esteem. Nearly every year since 1932, the CPNB or Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek (the Collective Promotion for the Dutch Book) organizes a book week, or Boekenweek to promote Dutch literature and reading. The entire country observes this literary festival for 10 days in March, with debates, book signings, author readings, a Book Ball, children's book events and even a commemorative postage stamp. What a lovely concept! The 2011 Boekenweek just ended on Saturday, so start planning for a visit next March maybe. 

The posters designed for the event this year were by Van Wanter Etcetera who collaborated with the fine art printer Souverein to create a series of 3D author book portraits called the Written Portraits. The 4 Dutch authors portrayed in the 3D books are Van Gogh, Anne Frank, Louis Vann Gaal and Kader Abdolla. The team at Souverein used original book pages for the text inside the portraits as a poetic salute to each of the four authors. 

For the 75th anniversary of Boekenweek last year, a commemorative postage stamp was issued for the event. As you can see below it is actually a small book with a short story included. The book which can be detached was designed as an actual appendix for the book written by Joost Zwagerman titled Duel. Zwagerman was invited to specifically write Dual for the coinciding event, Boekenweekgeschenk (Book Week Gift) where a prominent author is asked to write a book to be given by bookstores to customers purchasing a set amount of books in the Dutch language. I have no doubt this all requires a great deal of planning and logistics on many levels, but celebrating the book for one week each year is nothing compared to all the pleasures we get in return from books. 

Below are some past posters from Boekenweek. The first is designed by Wim Crouwel. The 2nd is a poster for the Boekenweek Dubutant Ball. Designer unknown, but from Jar Geerlings Flickr set. The poster of the dog with an identity crisis is from Designpolitie. If anyone knows the authors of the remaining posters, I will gladly post them if you get back to me here. 

:: Props to Cerebral Boinkfest for the Boekenweek lead and some of the images!

Czechoslovakian Stamp Designs

I'm a long-time fan of Czechoslovakian postage stamp design and have posted some of my own favorites stamps in the past here. Oliver Thomas has a wonderful Flickr set of additional Czech stamp designs including those here and they are very well documented. The variety and styles of the hand lettered text on these stamps is stunning.

Design credits from top to bottom:
1. Zdeněk Sklenář, 1974
2. Karel Svolinský, 1980
3. Karel Vodák, 1968
4. Jaroslav Lukavsky, 1971
5. Jaroslav Lukavsky, 1971
6. Ivan Strnad, 1971
7. Bedřich Housa, 1972
8. Anna Podzemná, 1978
9. Josef Herčík, 1979