About This Stamp
The 30th stamp in the Literary Arts series honors Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964), who crafted unsettling and darkly comic stories and novels about the potential for enlightenment and grace in what seem like the worst possible moments.
The color portrait on this stamp, a watercolor painting completed digitally, is based on a black-and-white photograph taken when O’Connor was a student at the Georgia State College for Women from 1942 to 1945. Surrounding O’Connor are peacock feathers, a symbol often associated with the author.
From the escaped convict in her famous story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” to the nihilistic street preacher in her novel Wise Blood, O’Connor populated her fiction with criminals, con artists, misfits, and freaks, and she delighted in confronting readers with a harsh and humbling mirror. “The freak in modern fiction is usually disturbing to us,” she explained, “because he keeps us from forgetting that we share in his state.”
Although O’Connor’s stories frequently culminate in acts of violence, her goal was not merely to be lurid. Instead, she hoped to shock readers toward moral and religious revelations, difficult messages that she knew readers might overlook or resist. “To the hard of hearing you shout,” she insisted, “and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”
The artist for this stamp was Sam Weber. Art director Phil Jordan designed the stamp.
The words "THREE OUNCE" on this stamp indicate its usage value. Like a Forever® stamp, this stamp will always be valid for the rate printed on it. The initial price and value for this stamp is 93 cents.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.
Art Director
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.
Stamp Artist
Sam Weber
Alaska-born illustrator Sam Weber grew up in Deep River, Ontario, Canada, drawing as a child to amuse himself and eventually others. Introduced to the idea of making art a career by an influential high school teacher, Weber graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary before pursuing an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Weber's first stint as a professional artist came while he was still in grad school, creating images for the The New York Times Op-Ed page and becoming assistant art director there. In his short career, Weber has produced an array of editorial pieces for clients, including Rolling Stone, TIME, Penguin Books, and The New Yorker, among others. Weber has also illustrated editions of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his favorite book, Lord of the Flies, for The Folio Society. One of Weber's most recent pieces was an image of Cleopatra designed for a National Geographic cover.
With haunting illustrations that combine elements of the natural world and imaginative details, Weber's uniquely striking images have won him acclaim in the art industry. In 2010, Weber was named one of Print magazine's 20 Under 30, and he has received silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Weber currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His first project for the Postal Service™ was Flannery O'Connor (2015), which was followed by Sharks (2017), Henry David Thoreau (2017), and Walt Whitman (2019).
Stamp Artist
Sam Weber
Alaska-born illustrator Sam Weber grew up in Deep River, Ontario, Canada, drawing as a child to amuse himself and eventually others. Introduced to the idea of making art a career by an influential high school teacher, Weber graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary before pursuing an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Weber's first stint as a professional artist came while he was still in grad school, creating images for the The New York Times Op-Ed page and becoming assistant art director there. In his short career, Weber has produced an array of editorial pieces for clients, including Rolling Stone, TIME, Penguin Books, and The New Yorker, among others. Weber has also illustrated editions of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and his favorite book, Lord of the Flies, for The Folio Society. One of Weber's most recent pieces was an image of Cleopatra designed for a National Geographic cover.
With haunting illustrations that combine elements of the natural world and imaginative details, Weber's uniquely striking images have won him acclaim in the art industry. In 2010, Weber was named one of Print magazine's 20 Under 30, and he has received silver and gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Weber currently lives and works in Brooklyn. His first project for the Postal Service™ was Flannery O'Connor (2015), which was followed by Sharks (2017), Henry David Thoreau (2017), and Walt Whitman (2019).