About This Stamp
This stamp in the Music Icons series honors singer and songwriter John Lennon (1940–1980), a rock-and-roll hero successful both as a founding member of the Beatles and as a solo artist. Still beloved around the world, Lennon's music remains an anchor of pop radio and continues to speak for truth and peace.
The stamp design features a photograph of Lennon taken by noted rock-and-roll photographer Bob Gruen in August 1974 during the photo session for Lennon's 1974 album Walls and Bridges. For the stamps, the original black-and-white image has been treated in gradations of color.
The stamp sheet is designed to resemble a vintage 45 rpm record sleeve. One side of the sheet includes the stamps, brief text about Lennon's legacy, and the image of a sliver of a record seeming to peek out the top of the sleeve. A black-and-white photograph of Lennon seated at his white piano appears on the reverse, along with Lennon's signature and the Music Icons series logo. Taken by photographer Peter Fordham, the original photograph was used to promote Lennon's landmark 1971 solo album, Imagine.
Lennon was just a 16-year-old high school student in Liverpool, England, when he, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison formed the band that would eventually become the Beatles. With songs like “Love Me Do,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “All You Need Is Love,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” the band dominated the world's pop charts throughout much of the 1960s.
As a solo artist, Lennon recorded a mix of groundbreakingly confessional songs, tender tracks like “Jealous Guy,” 1950s classics, and the still popular holiday single “Happy Christmas (War Is Over).” “Imagine” — the best known song of his solo career — is still sung ritualistically at events like post-9/11 memorials. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994.
Art director Antonio Alcalá worked on the stamp sheet with designer Neal Ashby.
The John Lennon stamps were issued as Forever® stamps. These Forever stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
The John Lennon signature is a trademark of Yoko Ono Lennon.
Stamp Art Director
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.
Stamp Designer and Typographer
Neal Ashby
Neal Ashby was born in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. He discovered his dream career at an early age when he read a pamphlet about careers in art and was immediately hooked by the job description for art director. He graduated in 1989 from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in advertising design.
A love of music shaped Ashby’s career. He learned to play several instruments but found his way into the music business through his design talents. After ten years as the vice president and creative director for the Recording Industry Association of America, Ashby went out on his own in 2002. He opened a design firm, Ashby Design, in Alexandria, Virginia, and continues to work with music industry clients, including a long-term relationship with the Washington, D.C., electronic duo Thievery Corporation.
Ashby was nominated for the Grammy® award for Best Recording Package three times, in 2005, 2006, and 2008. His work has been displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington.
Aside from his design work, Ashby loves to paint. It is strictly a hobby for him, a pastime he enjoys for the sheer pleasure of creating something visual just to please himself.
Ashby lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area. He has designed three stamps for the U.S. Postal Service®: Lydia Mendoza (2013), Ray Charles (2013), and John Lennon (2018), all issuances in the Music Icons series.