About This Stamp
On February 2, 1990, Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank joined Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Warren E. Burger, Chairman of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, to honor the judicial branch of government, established by the U.S. Constitution 200 years ago, with a commemorative stamp featuring John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall served on the Court for 35 years, 1801–1835.
Article III, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States provides that the "judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The Supreme Court of the United States was created in accordance with this provision, by authority of the Judiciary Act of September 24, 1789. It was organized on February 2, 1790.
The judicial branch currently comprises the Supreme Court, consisting of the chief justice and eight associate justices, plus the lower federal district courts and 12 circuit courts of appeals. Power to nominate the Supreme Court Justices and all federal judges is vested in the president, who makes appointments with the advice and consent of the Senate.
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
Howard Koslow
Howard Koslow was commissioned to do paintings that can be seen at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the National Air and Space Museum, and the NASA Art Gallery, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The National Park Service also commissioned him to create paintings for its historical art collections. Koslow's previous projects for the U.S. Postal Service include eight 1940s Celebrate The Century stamps (1999), four stamps featuring jazz/blues singers Mildred Bailey, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, and Bessie Smith (1994), and all of the stamps in the Lighthouse series: Mid-Atlantic Coastal Lighthouses (2021), Great Lakes Lighthouses (1995), Southeastern Lighthouses (2003), Pacific Lighthouses (2007), Gulf Coast Lighthouses (2009), and New England Coastal Lighthouses (2013). Koslow also designed a number of stamped cards including Carnegie Hall (1991), Ellis Island (1992), and the National Cathedral (1993). Howard Koslow died on January 25, 2016 at his home in Toms River, New Jersey. He was 91.