Famous Works of Art: Hokusai, 1974

Each of the eight stamps in this 1974 set depicts an artwork capturing the theme of reading and writing letters. USPS typically prints stamps with art by Americans, but for these, they searched worldwide for artworks to feature. After all, this set honors 100 years of the Universal Postal Union, the international postal governing body.

The art in this stamp comes from a larger work painted in 1810 by Katsushika Hokusai (you may know his famous image of a wave). Five Beautiful Womendepicts a vertical stack of women in a variety of different elegant robes, which denote various stations in life and occupations. The image for this stamp comes from the very bottom. This work is in the collection of the Seattle Asian Art Museum and they have a great short video about it.

See the full series here.

Katsushika Hokusai, Five Beautiful Women, 1810. Ink on silk, 18 x 71 inches. Image from the Seattle Asian Art Museum.