As an “Artist of the West,” Frederic Sackrider Remington received posthumous notice when his work appeared on the U.S. Post Office Department’s “first multicolored portrayal of a piece of fine art on an American postage stamp” (Commemorative Stamp Ceremony Program).
The Oct. 4, 1961, 4¢ issue marked the centennial of the artist’s birth in Canton, N.Y., showing a portion of his 1905 painting, “The Smoke Signal,” masterfully rendered on the Giori Press.
Remington died in 1909 at the age of forty-eight. In a relatively short life, he produced an amazing number of works as an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and author.
Two of his illustrations appeared in the 1898 Trans-Mississippi series: “Troops Guarding Train” on the 8¢ stamp and “Western Mining Prospector” on the 50¢ stamp. Remington called his original version of that image “The Gold Bug.”
Remington himself appeared on the 10¢ issue in the 1940 Famous Americans series.
In 1981, Remington’s 1902 bronze sculpture entitled “Coming Through the Rye” appeared on an 18¢ commemorative.
In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service used the Trans-Mississippi issues of 1898 as the basis for bi-color renditions of those stamps in a souvenir sheet, putting two of Remington’s works onto stamps for the second time.
The final appearance on a U.S. stamp of Remington’s work came in 2001 with a detail from his 1889 painting, “A Dash for the Timber,” appearing in the American Illustrators sheet of twenty 34¢ commemoratives.
These eight issues provide a glimpse into the prolific work of a beloved American artist whose creations recorded life in the West and still shape its images in the mind’s eye.