About This Stamp
Gardens are places of beauty no matter the season. Even when the weather is chilly or wintry, each garden has its own special allure: plants gilded by the slanting autumn light; fantastical shapes and contours conjured by a blanket of winter snow; and the visible green haze of early spring plants ready to burst into bud. But bright, colorful flowers are not absent in the garden even in the coldest months. Some plants bloom all winter in milder climates, while others thrive elsewhere despite — or because of — the cold.
The artist started with digital studies, then created the finished stamp art with oils on panel. These beautiful stamps feature illustrations of ten plants: camellia, crocus, hellebore, winterberry, pansy, plum blossom, grape hyacinth, daffodil, ranunculus, and winter aconite, which is also on the booklet cover.
Flowering plants, such as mums, might be covered by an early autumn snowfall, accentuating their fragile beauty and color. Some varieties of camellias and other shrubs bloom in fall into the winter. Others — hellebores and snowdrops, for example — thrust through the snow in late winter or early spring. Flowers, including crocuses and primroses, can withstand the cold of a surprise spring frost.
With the right plants, the garden can provide beautiful color all year long.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamps with original art by Gregory Manchess.
The Snowy Beauty stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps in booklets of 20. These Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director
Derry Noyes
For more than 40 years Derry Noyes has designed and provided art direction for close to 800 United States postage stamps and stamp products. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Hampshire College and a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.
Noyes worked as a graphics designer at Beveridge and Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm, until 1979 when she established her own design firm, Derry Noyes Graphics. Her clients have included museums, corporations, foundations, and architectural and educational institutions. Her work has been honored by American Illustration, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, Communication Arts, Critique magazine, Graphis, Creativity International, and the Society of Illustrators.
Before becoming an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, she served as a member of the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 1981 to 1983.
Noyes is a resident of Washington, D.C.
Stamp Artist
Gregory Manchess
Painter Gregory Manchess has worked as a freelance illustrator for nearly forty years on advertising campaigns, magazines, and book covers. His work has appeared on covers and in feature stories for National Geographic magazine, TIME, The Atlantic Monthly, and Smithsonian Magazine.
Noting his passion for history, the National Geographic Society sent Manchess on an expedition to record the exploits of explorer, David Thomson. The Society also chose his work to illustrate the traveling exhibition, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of The Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. His large portrait of Abraham Lincoln and seven other paintings of moments from Lincoln’s life are exhibited at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.
The artist has illustrated children’s books, including Nanuk: Lord of the Ice and Cheyenne Medicine Hat, written by Brian Heinz, and To Capture the Wind by author Sheila MacGill-Callahan.
Manchess is included in Walt Reed’s edition of The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. Widely awarded within the industry, he exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in New York. The Society presented him with its highest honor, the coveted Hamilton King Award.
Today, Manchess divides his time between New York and Kentucky, his native state. He lectures frequently at universities and colleges nationwide, gives painting workshops at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and teaches at the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, MA.
His figure and portrait work has led to numerous commissions for stamps by the U.S. Postal Service, including Oregon Statehood (2009), Mark Twain (2011), The 1963 March On Washington (2013), five paintings for Enjoy the Great Outdoors (2020), and ten for Snowy Beauty (2022).