Vibrant autumn colors burst forth on 10 stamps Aug. 16 at Great American Stamp Show

By Charles Snee

On Aug. 16 at the Great American Stamp Show in Hartford, Conn., one day after the scheduled first-day ceremony for the United States Pinback Buttons stamps at the nation’s largest annual philatelic gathering, the U.S. Postal Service will issue a set of 10 forever commemorative stamps celebrating the stunning colors of fall.

(For more details about the Pinback Buttons stamps, see the story in the Aug. 5 issue of Linn’s Stamp News.)

Each of the new nondenominated (73¢) Autumn Colors stamps showcases a picture taken by Allen Rokach (1941-2021), a highly acclaimed nature and garden photographer.

“In addition to the classic autumn colors of orange, red and yellow, the photographs show flashes of vermilion, ocher, violet and cobalt in different landscapes,” according to the USPS.

“Rokach often used what he called the ‘Rokach effect,’ a technique that gives photos an impressionistic cast,” the Postal Service said.

In a July 11 media advisory, the Postal Service said the first-day ceremony for the Autumn Colors stamps will take place at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time in Hall AB of the Connecticut Convention Center, 100 Columbus Blvd., in Hartford.

Heather Dyer, vice president and chief information security officer for the Postal Service, will serve as the dedicating official.

Collectors who wish to attend the ceremony should register with the Postal Service online. Each attendee may include up to nine additional guests, the USPS said.

“In many parts of the United States, autumn rivals spring as the most resplendent time of year, thanks to the rich palette of reds, yellows and oranges that bursts onto the landscape every fall,” the Postal Service said. “The Postal Service celebrates this radiant annual display with its Autumn Colors stamps.”

According to a brief biography on the late photographer’s website, Rokach crisscrossed the globe for more than four decades, training his observant eye during photo assignments that included tulip bulb fields in Holland, Egyptian antiquities and the enormous Amazonian rain forest.

“An expert in location photography best known for his photographs of flowers, gardens and landscapes, Rokach’s work has spanned everything from public relations and photojournalism to art and sculpture to travel and features about people,” the website said. “In the course of his career, he also served for fourteen years as the staff photographer and Director of Photography at the New York Botanical Garden and ten years as a Senior Photographer for Southern Living magazine.”

Rokach was also actively involved as an educator, with teaching stints at the American Museum of Natural History and International Center of Photography (both in New York City), among others.

In addition, he was a prolific lecturer “and led travel photography workshops to various locations in West Africa, Europe, India, East Asia, the Amazon, the Caribbean, Israel, Egypt and other parts of the Middle East … ” according to the website.

Rokach co-authored with his wife, Anne Millman, eight books and numerous articles on photography, travel, nature and science. Their book Focus on Flowers: Discovering & Photographing Beauty in Gardens & Wild Places captured the 1991 award of the year for photography from the Garden Writers Association of America.

Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Md., a veteran art director for the USPS, designed the Autumn Colors stamps.

With characteristic good cheer, Kessler told Linn’s via email how enjoyable it was for her to work on this seasonal issue.

She has worked with Rokach previously. They collaborated for the 2020 American Gardens stamps (Scott 5461-5470), which feature Rokach’s photos of gardens located in nine different states and Washington, D.C.

“I was working with Allen on the American Gardens pane of stamps and there were so many beautiful images that I looked at that we couldn’t use for a wide variety of reasons … gorgeous images … and in one of the [Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee] meetings the idea was raised about doing stamps to celebrate fall colors!” Kessler said.

When asked about which characteristics of Rokach’s work were most compelling, she pointed out features of three of the photos on the stamps.

“The intensity of color is something I’m always interested in,” Kessler said.

“And in each of these images at least one color is a standout,” she continued. “I love the way the stand of trees seamlessly moves from green to yellow [right stamp in third row]. I love the way the purple ground cover adds depth [left stamp in top row], and I Iove the way the blue jumps out in the shade [left stamp in fourth row].”

When it came to selecting a format for the Autumn Colors stamps, the USPS opted for a standard pane of 20 instead of the more popular double-sided foldable pane of 20.

“It’s all about the size of the stamps!” Kessler said. “The stamps for our booklet of 20 are Special size and these stamps are Semi-jumbo. More size. More color. More impact.”

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