About this artwork
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is said to have selected Whistler’s portrait for this U.S. postage stamp, issued “In Memory and in Honor of the Mothers of America.” In adapting the painting’s composition for the stamp, the designer took the liberty of cropping and altering the image, adding a vase of flowers in the lower left corner. These alterations gave rise to a controversy, at whose center was Alfred Barr, then the director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Barr had been the architect of the American tour of Whistler’s painting in 1933–34 and felt a special obligation to defend the painting as a work of art.
-
Status
- Currently Off View
-
Department
- Prints and Drawings
-
Artist
- James McNeill Whistler
-
Title
- Sheet of Stamps of Whistler's Mother
-
Place
- United States (Object made in:)
-
Date
- Printed 1934
-
Medium
- Uncut sheet of stamps in purple ink
-
Dimensions
- Each stamp: 2.2 × 3.6 cm (7/8 × 1 7/16 in.); Sheet: 26.1 × 23 cm (10 5/16 × 9 1/16 in.)
-
Credit Line
- Gift of Walter S. Brewster
-
Reference Number
- R5561/0002
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
