About This Stamp
An eye-catching sight in the Marina District of San Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts has long been a source of pride for local residents and an attraction for visitors from around the world. With this Priority Mail Express® stamp, the U.S. Postal Service celebrates this iconic architectural landmark.
The stamp art shows the rotunda and part of the colonnades of the Palace of Fine Arts, with a small lagoon in the foreground. The digital illustration is based on a photograph of the Palace of Fine Arts looking west across the lagoon.
The original Palace of Fine Arts was built to showcase artwork at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In addition to celebrating the completion of the Panama Canal and the economic opportunities offered by easier access to Pacific markets, the expo also highlighted the rebirth of San Francisco after the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906.
As one of several “palaces” built for the exposition, the Palace of Fine Arts was not meant to be permanent. Although it resembled Italian stonework, the impressive rotunda and colonnades were actually constructed from a mixture of plaster and fiber over wood. The other “palaces” were demolished soon after the expo closed, but the Palace of Fine Arts remained standing. For decades, the increasingly fragile structure was used for a number of purposes. Beginning in 1964, the dilapidated structure was essentially demolished and rebuilt using more permanent materials.
With its rotunda flanked by colonnades forming a semicircle around a lagoon, the Palace of Fine Arts is an architectural icon that symbolizes San Francisco to the nation and the world. Numerous television shows and movies have been filmed on the premises, while the interior of the exhibition hall behind the rotunda is a venue for galas, concerts, trade shows, corporate meetings, and other large-scale events.
Designed by art director Greg Breeding, the stamp showcases a digital illustration by Dan Cosgrove.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer, Stamp Artist
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.
Stamp Artist
Dan Cosgrove
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Dan Cosgrove graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1978 with a major in graphic design. After briefly working for the National Park Service in Denver and as a designer at Cato Johnson in Cincinnati, Cosgrove moved to Chicago in 1980 and began a freelance career in digital and traditional illustration.
Cosgrove's designs have appeared in numerous ads, posters, covers, and on packaging. Recent clients include Cunard Line, Dunlop Tire, Fiat, J P Morgan Chase, Miller Brewing Company, Netflix, The New York Times, Shell Oil company, SohoPress, and The Wall Street Journal. In recognition of his work Cosgrove has received awards from Communications Arts and the Society of Illustrators (Gold Medal).
The 2008 Express Mail® and Priority Mail® stamps featuring Mount Rushmore and Hoover Dam were Cosgrove's first projects for the U.S. Postal Service. Since then, Cosgrove has illustrated 27 additional Express Mail and Priority Mail Express stamps. Recent designs include Florida Everglades (Priority Mail) (2023), Great Smoky Mountains (Priority Mail Express) (2023), Monument Valley (Priority Mail) (2022), and Palace of Fine Arts (Priority Mail Express) (2022). He also created the stamp art for USS Missouri (2019).
Cosgrove and his wife live in Clarendon Hills, Illinois.