About This Stamp
In 2000 the U.S. Postal Service issued a nondenominated, presorted standard stamp featuring one of the two sculpted male lions that guard the main entrance to The New York Public Library. Located on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets in Manhattan, the library was dedicated on May 23, 1911, and opened its doors to the public the following day. Many consider it to be an outstanding example of Beaux Arts architecture.
Originally dubbed Leo Astor and Leo Lenox after two of the library’s benefactors — John Jacob Astor and James Lenox — the lions later became known as Lord Astor and Lady Lenox. According to The New York Public Library, it was Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who, in the 1930s, gave them the names Patience and Fortitude, qualities that New Yorkers would need to survive the Great Depression. Patience, featured on the stamp, keeps watch at the south end of the steps; Fortitude at the north. Adopted by the library as mascots, the lions have come to be admired and loved not only by New Yorkers, but also by visitors from around the world.
Edward Clark Potter (1857–1923) sculpted the lions from Tennessee Pink marble. Potter specialized in animal figures, portrait statues, and equestrian monuments. In addition to The New York Public Library lions, he also sculpted a pair of lionesses at the original entrance to the Pierpont Morgan Library on East 36th Street in Manhattan. His equestrian statues include Major General John A. McClernand at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi and Major General Henry Slocum at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.
The stamp art depicts one of the two sculpted male lions that guard the main entrance to The New York Public Library in Manhattan. Using a photograph as reference, nationally known illustrator Nancy Stahl made a pencil sketch of the lion, which she then used as the basis for her final computer drawing.
Art Director
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
Nancy Stahl
A native of Long Island, New York, Nancy Stahl studied art at the University of Arizona, the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her career can be split nearly equally between traditional media and digitally created art. Originally working in graphite, she experimented with a variety of media before making gouache paintings her signature style. She learned to work digitally starting in 1989 and abandoned her paints a few years later. Stahl’s clients have ranged from newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME magazine, and Der Spiegel to corporate identity, packaging and billboards for companies such as The Disney Family Museum, Sharffen Berger chocolates, and Stonyfield Farms. Her love of craft has allowed Stahl to accept assignments as varied as creating lace for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and knitting Christmas stamp designs in 2005 for the US Postal Service®. Her work is represented in The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000 by Walt Reed and Rolling Stone: The Illustrated Portraits edited by Fred Woodward. An instructor in the Independent Study Masters Degree program at Syracuse University, Stahl has also taught illustration at the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology. In 2012, She was elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. Stahl works from her studio in New York City where in her leisure time she pursues her hobby of computerized knitting.
She has designed more than 40 stamps for the U.S. Postal Service including the New York Public Library Lion (2000), three stamps for the Stars and Stripes issuance (2015), 19th Amendment: Women Vote (2020), and most recently Women's Rowing (2022). Stahl is especially well known for her highly stylized animal stamps, including Bighorn Sheep (2007); the Save Vanishing Species semipostal (2011, reissue 2014), featuring a portrait of an Amur tiger cub; Penguins (2015); Frogs (2019); and Save Manatees (2024).