About This Stamp
The Postal Service honored Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg with the issuance of a 32-cent commemorative stamp on April 24, 1997, in Washington, D.C.
Raoul Wallenberg, an international symbol of 20th-century humanitarianism, issued protective passes, the "Schutz-Passes," and provided safe houses that saved countless lives of Jews during World War II. In 1981, he was awarded honorary American citizenship, only one of two individuals to have received this honor up until that time (the other was Sir Winston Churchill).
The stamp was designed by Howard Paine of Delaplane, Virginia, and illustrated by Burt Silverman of New York, New York. The stamp depicts Wallenberg with various design elements to suggest his humanitarian efforts. The stamp was issued in a pane of 20 and printed by Ashton-Potter (USA), Ltd., in the offset process.
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.