About This Stamp
Four of the most influential early gospel artists (Mahalia Jackson, Roberta Martin, Clara Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe) were honored on a se-tenant set of stamps — the 12th issue in the Legends of American Music series.
Stamp Art Director
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.
Stamp Artist
Gary Kelley
Renowned illustrator Gary Kelley has created award-winning images for many of America’s major publications and corporations including Time, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the National Football League, and Google.
Educated in his native Iowa at the University of Northern Iowa, Kelley received an honorary doctor of humane letters from his alma mater in 1995. His work — honored by the Society of Illustrators as Best in Show as well as with gold and silver medals — has been exhibited throughout the U.S., as well as in Tokyo and Paris. Kelley has illustrated nearly 30 picture books. He has lectured or taught at the Smithsonian Institution, the Chicago Art Institute, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Art Center College of Design, among others. In 2006, Kelley was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.
In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service issued his designs for four stamps celebrating gospel singers as part of the Legends of American Music series. In 2010, Kelley illustrated the Oscar Micheaux stamp and in 2012, four Great Film Directors stamps. Most recently, Kelly illustrated the stamp art for the 2020 Voices of the Harlem Renaissance issuance and created portraits of John Dickinson and James Madison for the 2026 Figures of the American Revolution stamp pane.