About This Stamp
With this 25th stamp in the Literary Arts series, the U.S. Postal Service honors author Richard Wright (1908–1960). Best remembered for his controversial 1940 novel, Native Son, and his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Wright drew on a wide range of literary traditions, including protest writing and detective fiction, to craft unflinching portrayals of racism in American society.
The stamp artwork by Kadir Nelson features a portrait of Richard Wright in front of snow-swept tenements on the South Side of Chicago, a scene that recalls the setting of Native Son. Nelson's portrait of Wright was based on a circa 1945 photograph.
Stamp Art Director, Stamp Designer
Carl T. Herrman
As an art director for the U.S. Postal Service® for more than 15 years, Carl T. Herrman designed more than 50 stamps and guided more than 250 stamp projects, including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and Comic Strip Classics. He also served as art director for five of the Celebrate the Century stamp panes. He has won more than 260 awards for design and design management, including two gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.
Herrman’s career has included positions as Director of Creative Services and adjunct professor at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, and Director of Marketing and Publications for the University of California at Irvine. He has provided consulting services for the Smithsonian Institution, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and numerous academic institutions. Herrman lives in Carlsbad,California.
Stamp Artist
Kadir Nelson
Kadir Nelson, an award-winning American artist and author, has been drawing since the age of three. His paintings can be found in galleries, museums, and private collections worldwide, and in the permanent collections of notable institutions, among them the United States House of Representatives, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Nelson has also written and illustrated more than 30 acclaimed children’s books: We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball (2009); and Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (2011). He recently created 30 original paintings for Blue Sky White Stars, a picture book celebrating the American flag and its history, as well as original artwork for the upcoming picture book, The Undefeated (2019) written by Kwame Alexander.
An honors graduate of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Nelson began his career as the lead conceptual artist for the Steven Spielberg film Amistad. He was tapped by Sony to create the album cover artwork for the Michael Jackson posthumously released album, “Michael.” His artwork regularly appears on covers of The New Yorker magazine. Other clients have included Sports Illustrated, the Coca-Cola Company, The New York Times, and Major League Baseball.
Honored by the Society of Illustrators with the Hamilton King Award and multiple gold medals, Nelson has also won the Robert F. Sibert Medal as well as two Caldecott Honors, numerous Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator awards, the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book awards, and NAACP Image Awards.
His latest design for the U.S. Postal Service is the 2019 Marvin Gaye stamp. Previous stamp designs honored Richard Wright and Anna Julia Cooper (2009); Negro Leagues Baseball (2010); Major League Baseball All-Stars (2012); Althea Gibson (2013); and Ralph Ellison and Wilt Chamberlain (2014).