June 2007
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This month sees the 40th anniversary of Arnold Machin’s definitive Queen’s Head stamp. It was featured in the ICONS Online project in 2006 as one of our most recognisable national symbols. Royal Mail are marking the anniversary by issuing a new ruby-red Machin £1 stamp, along with two special stamps.
It could be argued that these Stamps of the Month are not stamps at all. More accurately, they are essays: trial stamps produced towards the end of the design process. Essays are printed in the same technique intended for the final stamps, and at the correct size, to see what effect this has on the design.
These are the high-value essays producing by line-engraving, in a deliberate echo of the Victorian Penny Black. The colours are exactly the same as the issued stamps - the main difference is the lack of perforations. We have scanned them at a higher quality to show them larger than life.
On 19 July 2007 the BPMA will launch a major exhibition at the Royal College of Art which tells the complete story of the genesis of this timeless and classic design. You can already visit a smaller companion display at The Royal Mail Archive, from Friday 4 May.
Arnold Machin
Arnold Machin was born in 1911,
in Oak Hill, Stoke-on-Trent. Apprenticed to the Minton Pottery at the age
of 14, he worked as a china painter for seven years. He moved to the Old Derby China Works, and after five more years of part time study, he won a
scholarship to the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London.
He developed his classical style of sculpture at the RCA. This approach had little in common
with the dominant Modernist styles of the times, but in 1940 he won an RCA
Silver Medal and Travelling Scholarship for Sculpture, and in 1944 the
Tate Gallery bought two of his works.
After graduating from the
RCA Machin returned to the potteries to work at the famous
Wedgwood firm. He became Head of Stoke Art School as well, but was forced
to resign at the onset of the Second World War when he declared himself
a conscientious objector CO. Machin was sentenced to 12 months
imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs. He returned to Wedgwood, and modelled one of
his most successful ceramic works with the company, Taurus the Bull.
Machin continued to rise in his field in the 1940s and 50s, and held posts at the Royal Academy and RCA. In 1958 he was appointed
Master of Sculpture at the Royal Academy School, where he remained for
nine years.
In 1964 he
was chosen to design the new effigy of the Queen for the first decimal
coins, due to be introduced in four years time. This coin work led directly to his most famous creation: the Queen's Head stamp design.
Machin wanted to create something as classic as the Penny Black, which had featured an unaltered image of a very young Queen Victoria throughout her reign. The use of an image from sculpture rather than photography created what Machin called "a classical and timeless symbol of Royalty." Machin produced a work to match these fine words: the magnificent Machin definitive stamp still used today.
We want you to contact us with your suggestions for future Stamps of the Month. But remember, your ideas must be based on a forthcoming stamp issue from Royal Mail.
