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Photography at the P.O.
The inside story behind the "Masters of American Photography" series of postage stamps
by Rich Edwards
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A Pioneer at Princeton
title is the most popular photograph this week -- as measured by its appearing on 17 My Walls created by our members.
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Ken Light
$1200 US
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"The task seemed incredibly daunting," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "Condense 130 years of outstanding American photography to 20 images that convey both the artistic and journalistic aspects of the medium, shrink them to an inch-and-a-half by an inch, put them all on one page and hope they sell.
"That's what the U. S. Postal Service has done with its new stamp series, Masters of American Photography, an arresting display of 20 black-and-white photographs that include Civil War soldiers by Timothy O'Sullivan, an Andre Kertesz cityscape, an Edward Steichen image of a lotus and a Garry Winogrand street scene."
'I Selected the Images'
"It might interest you to know," says Peter Bunnell, "that I selected the photographers and the images for the set, and drafted the texts on the verso. The designer I worked with was Derry Noyes in Washington. I was invited by the Postal Service late in l996 to be the consultant. We began work seriously the next year. With the complexities of selection, permissions, design, etc., it has taken until now to finish the set (although it was ready to go a year ago, but another set was put out in its place). It was a long and difficult task, but great fun and to see it now -- very rewarding."
Bunnell told the Times, "You can publish all the magazines and books in the world, but you probably aren't going to reach millions of people with this kind of all authoritative pronouncement. Presumably this might have some affect on a lay public that never thought about photography. Also, in an era when everything is in color, this reminds you that the first visual images were black and white, which is a truly abstract form."
A Pioneer at Princeton
Peter Bunnell in 1972 filled the first endowed chair for teaching photography at an American university as McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University, a position he retired from in June 2002. At Princeton he also serves as faculty curator of photography at the Art Museum at Princeton and curator of the Minor White Archive. He is a past chairman of the Friends of Photography, among many other activities in the field of photography over a long and distinguished career.
"In the past," Bunnell says, "the Postal Service has done American painting and sculpture, bugs and birds, and everything else -- but this is the first time the government has recognized photography. As you can see, it worked out very beautifully."
-- Excerpted from the August 2002 issue of the monthly fine arts and photography newsletter Get Visually Stimulated! 
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November in Brief
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Snap Shots
Museum Interest Keeps on Growing
The list of major museums acquiring large, important photography collections continues to grow.
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