About This Stamp
Ring in the Lunar New Year with treats, noise, and celebration! Two bright reddish orange peonies highlight the 2016 Year of the Monkey stamp from the U.S. Postal Service®, ninth in the Celebrating Lunar New Year series. The Year of the Monkey began on February 8, 2016, and ended on January 27, 2017.
In the United States and elsewhere, the occasion is marked in various ways across many cultures; parades featuring enormous and vibrantly painted papier-mâché dragons, parties, and other special events are common. Vendors at outdoor markets sell flowers, toys, food, and other items for celebration. Musicians play drums, often decorated with peonies like those depicted in the stamp art, to celebrate this time of renewed hope for the future, with drumsticks sometimes painted red for luck. Many families present red envelopes (hongbao) containing money to children and loved ones. People eat foods that bring good luck, such as kumquats and rice cakes, and hang festive lanterns as decoration.
Combining original artwork by Kam Mak with two elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps — Clarence Lee’s intricate cut-paper design of a monkey and the Chinese character for "monkey," drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun — art director Ethel Kessler has created a culturally rich stamp design that celebrates the diversity of the American experience.
The Year of the Monkey stamp was issued as a Forever® stamp in self-adhesive souvenir sheets of 12. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
Ethel Kessler
Ethel Kessler is an award-winning designer and art director who has worked with corporations, museums, public and private institutions, professional service organizations, and now, the United States Postal Service.
After earning a B.F.A. in visual communications from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Kessler worked as a graphic designer and project manager for the exhibits division of the United States Information Agency. Her work was distributed internationally on subjects such as Immigration, Entrepreneurship, Renovation of American Cities, and the Bicentennial of 1976. She was also responsible for exhibits in Morocco, Botswana, and El Salvador.
In 1981, she established Kessler Design, Inc., for which she is creative director and designer. Clients have included the Clinton Government reorganization, the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Television, the National Park Service, and the American Institute of Architects.
She has been an art director for the U.S. Postal Service’s stamp development program for more than 25 years. As an art director for USPS, Kessler has been responsible for creating more than 500 stamp designs, including the Breast Cancer Research stamp illustrated by Whitney Sherman. Issued in 1998, the stamp is still on sale and has raised more $98 million for breast cancer research. Other Kessler projects include the popular and highly regarded Nature of America 120 stamp series, a collaboration with nationally acclaimed nature illustrator John Dawson, the 12-year Lunar New Year series with Kam Mak, the American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes 10 stamps issued in 2003, a 2016 pane of stamps celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, and the 2023 stamp honoring Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And many, many others.
Stamp Artist
Kam Mak
Kam Mak was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New York City’s Chinatown after his family moved to the United States in 1971. Kam’s involvement with cityArts Workshop, an organization designed to encourage the art interests of inner city youth, inspired his love of painting. He earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1984 from New York’s School of Visual Arts where he studied on a full scholarship.
Mak’s richly colored paintings have illustrated the covers of numerous magazines and books including his first offering as both author and illustrator, My Chinatown: One Year in Poems, about a little boy growing up in Chinatown.
For his award-winning illustrations Mak has received the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award for best children’s picture book, the National Parenting Publications Gold Medal, and the Stevan Dohanos Award and both gold and silver Medals from the Society of Illustrators. In addition to My Chinatown, books for which he won acclaim include The Dragon Prince by Laurence Yep, The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean, The Year of the Panda by Miriam Schlein, and The Moon of the Monarch Butterflies by Jean Craighead George.
Mak is a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He is currently working on a series of figurative and still-life paintings, using the medium of egg tempera, a process that uses egg yolk to bind pigments. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family.
Mak was commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service to design the 12-year stamp series Celebrating Lunar New Year that began in 2008 and has continued through 2019. His most recent stamp design features Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu (2021).