Add Style to Your Snail Mail in 2010

The USPS unveiled its 2010 Stamp Program, which includes images honoring 10 abstract expressionist artists.

WASHINGTON — For those who still find the time to hand-write letters, greeting cards and postcards, and send them via old-fashioned snail mail, the United States Postal Service's new stamp designs will add a touch of style to the outside of any envelope. The 2010 stamp program unveiled Thursday by the USPS pays homage to a diverse range of people, places and events. Featured subjects include Nobel Peace Prize honoree Mother Teresa, legendary actress Katharine Hepburn, the Cowboys of the Silver Screen, American painter Winslow Homer, the Mackinac Bridge, the Sunday Funnies and the upcoming 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

One stamp pane in particular depicts the artistic innovations and achievements of ten abstract expressionists - Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock. This group of artists revolutionized art during the 1940s and 1950s and moved the U.S. to the forefront of the international art scene for the first time.

According to the USPS release:

"Abstract expressionism refers to a large body of work that comprised radically different styles, from still, luminescent fields of color to vigorous, almost violent, slashes of paint. In celebration of the abstract expressionist artists of the 20th century, art director Ethel Kessler and noted art historian Jonathan Fineberg (Gutgsell Professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) selected ten paintings to feature on this colorful pane of self-adhesive stamps. Kessler used elements from Barnett Newman’s Achilles (1952)to frame the stamps. The arrangement of the stamps suggests paintings hanging on a gallery wall."

The abstract expressionist stamps will go on sale March 11, 2010.
__________________________________________________________

Add Style to Your Snail Mail in 2010

A-List Goes GaGa Over 30 Years of MOCA

LOS ANGELES — A-Listers from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, to Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, to Christina Ricci, Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, James Franco and Pierce Brosnan, were among the 1,000 guests at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The MOCA threw a huge gala in celebration of its thirtieth anniversary and the grand opening of its new fine art exhibition MOCA's First Thirty Years. A performance starring Lady Gaga and the Bolshoi Ballet were highlights of the evening.

Celebrities wandered among the more than 500 artworks by Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat, selected from MOCA's vast inventory of 6,000 works, one of the world's top collections of post-World War II art. Other exhibit highlights include Ed Ruscha's Chocolate Room made of chocolate on paper and smelling like chocolate (yum!), and an all-white and neon room by Doug Wheeler (shoe-removal required for entry).

The museum almost didn't reach this 30-year milestone due to severe financial difficulties. "We were among the first institutions to be hit very hard and very early and we are among the first to be saved in this process," said MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel. Thanks to a  generous $30 million donation from Eli Broad, a renowned modern art collector and philanthropist, the MOCA's iconic collection was spared. "This is the biggest turnaround of any art institution, whether it is performing arts or the visual arts, if you think of all that has happened in the last year," Broad said.

MOCA ♥ YOU

MOCA's First Thirty Years is split between two venues: 1940-80 at the MOCA Grand Avenue downtown and 1980-Now at the The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA nearby. Admission is free to the public now until November 20.

___________________

MOCA's First Thirty Years (Nov. 15, 2009 - May 3, 2010) | Website

=================  

[Photo: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt browse Lichtenstein gallery at the MOCA, courtesy Getty images]

A-List Goes GaGa Over 30 Years of MOCA