About This Stamp
This stamp honors Jimmy Carter (1924–2024), the 39th President of the United States. From his origins in small-town Georgia, Carter came to the White House as an outsider who represented a new generation of progressive Southern politicians. After a presidency that began with promise and accomplishment, but suffered diplomatic and economic turmoil in its final year, Carter devoted more than three decades to advancing peace, democracy, and human rights throughout the world.
The stamp art is a 1982 oil-on-linen painting created as a life study by artist Herbert E. Abrams (1921–2003) in preparation for painting his official White House portrait of Carter.
Carter made humility, reconciliation, and frugality recurring themes in his presidency. He appointed many women and minorities to government positions, created a presidential commission on mental health, established new Cabinet departments, and greatly increased the size of the National Park System and federally designated wilderness areas. In his efforts to improve the economy, he presided over the deregulation of energy prices as well as several industries, most notably air travel.
On the world stage, Carter was praised for personally negotiating the Camp David Accords, providing a framework for peace in the Middle East. He signed SALT II, a treaty with the Soviet Union to limit strategic nuclear arms, and he announced that the United States would officially recognize and establish formal diplomatic relations with China.
After his presidency, Carter partnered with Emory University to establish The Carter Center, which advances democracy, monitors elections, mediates disputes, and works to prevent neglected tropical diseases in the world’s poorest nations. In recognition of his activism on behalf of peace, human rights, and social and economic progress around the world, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 — long after many had praised him as America’s greatest ex-president.
Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp.
The President Jimmy Carter stamp is being 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, Stamp Designer
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.