Art Lovers discussion

I wasn't sure where to post this because we had been talking about Ruth Asawa and her fame getting posted on the United States postage stamp.

Well, I found a whole file of letters and cards that I'd sent to my grandma over the years since I was about 3 years old. We were very close, but she always lived in Utah and I grew up everywhere but Utah. She just passed away four years ago and I inherited all my cards that she'd kept. I never went through them until the other day.

She kept everything in its envelope because I decorated the envelopes, too.

I found five 37 cent stamps of famous photographers. Do you remember when those came out? I don't remember them. Now the price of one stamp is 55 cents, so it must have been awhile ago anyway.

I'll list who they were.

Alfred Stieglitz, (born January 1, 1864, Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.—died July 13, 1946, New York, New York)
art dealer, publisher, advocate for the Modernist movement in the arts, and, arguably, the most important photographer of his time.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

I wanted to add, I recognized the picture on the stamp as one of his depicting the hands of Georgia O'Keeffe. She did have photogenic hands!

Minor White, (born July 9, 1908, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.—died June 24, 1976, Cambridge, Mass.)
American photographer and editor whose efforts to extend photography’s range of expression greatly influenced creative photography in the mid-20th century.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

Walker Evans, (born November 3, 1903, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.—died April 10, 1975, New Haven, Connecticut)
American photographer whose influence on the evolution of ambitious photography during the second half of the 20th century was perhaps greater than that of any other figure. He rejected the prevailing highly aestheticized view of artistic photography, of which Alfred Stieglitz was the most visible proponent, and constructed instead an artistic strategy based on the poetic resonance of common but exemplary facts, clearly described. His most characteristic pictures show quotidian American life during the second quarter of the century, especially through the description of its vernacular architecture, its outdoor advertising, the beginnings of its automobile culture, and its domestic interiors.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

Ansel Adams, (born February 20, 1902, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died April 22, 1984, Carmel, California)
American photographer who was the most important landscape photographer of the 20th century. He is also perhaps the most widely known and beloved photographer in the history of the United States; the popularity of his work has only increased since his death. Adams’s most important work was devoted to what was or appeared to be the country’s remaining fragments of untouched wilderness, especially in national parks and other protected areas of the American West. He was also a vigorous and outspoken leader of the conservation movement.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

Garry Winogrand, (born January 14, 1928, Bronx, New York, U.S.—died March 19, 1984, Tijuana, Mexico)
American street photographer known for his spontaneous images of people in public engaged in everyday life, particularly of New Yorkers during the 1960s. His unusual camera angles, uncanny sense of timing, and ability to capture bizarre and sometimes implausible configurations of people, places, and things made him one of the most influential photographers of his generation. He was extremely prolific, and though he died young, Winogrand created a vast corpus of work that documented society across the United States over the course of three decades.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/...

It's kind of wild that I found these. Just a few months ago, right before the virus shut everything down, my aunt who lives in Los Angeles talked to me about starting a hobby together. She's single, has been her whole life, though she has lived quite an adventurous life! She's now about 73 y.o. and lives alone. Doesn't have any children. No family out there. I'm closest to her out of her nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews.

She wants to collect stamps. Not for selling or seriously collecting anything that would be worth something, but collecting really cool-looking stamps. So I agreed.

I bought her and myself a stamp-collecting book off Amazon. Just a thin one, I doubt we'll collect much. But whenever we see a cool one we keep it. I never get any in the mail because all my mail is bills or junk and it's all 'presorted first class' 'prepaid first class' stamped on it in ink. So I don't get any stamps. So I go to the post offices and specifically ask what stamps they have and deliberately buy one for me and one for her then send hers.

So now, if you have read this far down my story, I have a question:
I'm going to send my aunt two of these stamps. I want to keep Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz because I know those two. Which two should I send her? I just want your opinions. Thank you in advance!

Oh! Another thing I found while I was going through my letters. I lived over in Italy in 1995-1997. At that time they were still using the Lire or millelire before they changed to the Euro. (Mi dispiace tutti Italiani, non mi ricordo come se dice i soldi in quelli anni)
But I found some stamps that had the currency on them.

Does anyone know about any of these photographer/artists? I know Geoffrey would have an answer for this. I'm sad about Geoffrey.

Anyone? I kept Ansel Adams And Alfred Stieglitz for myself because those are the only two I know. I'm going to send her two, which two should I send her? Or does it matter? Does anyone know?

Also, I found a bunch of old letters today and I saw a 20 cent letter with a painting by Raphael. Cool, huh?

No worries, I just picked two and I'm keeping one. It doesn't really matter. I'm not collecting stamps to sell or trade or whatever they do with them. It's just for fun to collect the ones that are cool.