About This Stamp
This 2018 issuance honors the millions of Americans, both at home and abroad, who participated in World War I, the seminal conflict of the twentieth century. The United States, despite remaining neutral until 1917 and not engaging in major combat until 1918, helped end the four-year global conflict (1914-1918) and emerged from it as a major world power.
The stamp art features a close-up of a member of the American Expeditionary Force holding the U.S. flag. Barbed wire can be seen in the background, as well as an airplane in flight and smoke rising up from the battlefield.
The American Expeditionary Force, which ultimately grew to nearly five million troops, did not see major action until the spring of 1918. Then in six months of intense combat American troops played an indispensable role in turning the tide of war in favor of the Allies.
Mark Stutzman painted the artwork in airbrush on illustration board, a technique that evokes the propaganda posters used during World War I. Art director Greg Breeding designed the issuance.
The World War I: Turning the Tide stamp was issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
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
Mark Stutzman
After graduation from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1978, Mark Stuzman began his career as an illustrator at local television station KDKA-TV2, where he created on-air news graphics, worked on sets, and hand-painted weather maps. His drawings of celebrities for TV Guide ads eventually landed him a job as a layout artist and staff illustrator at a Washington, D.C., advertising agency. There he worked on many accounts, including PBS.
Stutzman eventually moved to a smaller ad agency outside Washington; his responsibilities ranged from comprehensive layout artist to art director. He and his wife, Laura, ultimately joined forces to form Eloqui. Their studio provided illustration for a varied group of clients in the Washington metro area. In 1987, Eloqui moved to its current location in the Appalachian Mountains of Maryland.
Stutzman is best known for his portrait of Elvis Presley featured on a 1993 U.S. Postal Service® stamp honoring the music legend, but his illustrations adorn advertisements, products, magazines, and more. He has created artwork for the Broadway musical version of Young Frankenstein, illusionist David Blaine’s posters, movie franchises such as Batman and Jurassic Park, and bestselling author Stephen King’s book covers. His other clients include McDonald’s, Microsoft, DC Comics, Mad, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, TIME, and Esquire.