Every now and then the US Postal Service publishes a new stamp that makes it worth waiting in line at the post office. And this year we got one: stamps featuring the work of Emilio Sanchez. Postage stamps are one of the rare things in life in which the interesting ones cost the same as the plain ones--so why not go with the gusto?? And the Sanchez stamps indeed exude gusto!
Emilio Sanchez was a Cuban born artist (1921-1999), who began his art studies at the Art Students League in New York. He painted a variety of subjects, but was especially fascinated by the play of light and shadow on brightly colored forms. The buildings of the Caribbean and other regions proved to be perfect vehicles for his exploration of light and shadow and color. But he also depicted scenes from New York, such as the one just below.
Sanchez has been compared to Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keefe in the way that they simplified the environment. One critic said they created an "abstract stillness of the built environment"--I could not say it better. By eliminating extraneous details, Sanchez reduces these structures to their essence, and they take on universal meaning. Though the details are eliminated, the colors are so true, and the shapes so accurate, that the structures remain very believable. In fact, they almost seem alive.
I love the way that Sanchez knows how to zero in on the most telling, most interesting shapes. He zooms in on one part of a structure, but that one part tells us everything we need to know to picture the entire structure in our minds. Or to sense the place that it occupies. Believe me, selecting just the right slice of a scene to achieve this feat is easier said than done.
I have purchased my Sanchez stamps, but I am tempted to keep them to look at, rather than to use them to mail letters. I hope this will inspire you to check them out. And for the curious, I'm closing with a shot of Sanchez himself. I may be crazy, but something about the decisive planes of his features reminds me of his paintings...
