Pierre Gandon was a French illustrator and engraver of

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s. He was born on 20 January 1899 in

L'Haÿ-les-Roses L'Haÿ-les-Roses () is a Communes of France, commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. L'Haÿ-les-Roses is a ''Subprefectures in France, sous-préfecture'' of the Val-de-Marne ''Dépa ...

(

Val-de-Marne Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a p ...

) and died on 23 July 1990.

Youth

His father Gaston Gandon was himself an engraver at the Institut de gravure of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and designed stamps for some countries and two for France (Le Burelé 50 Francs in 1936 and the cathedral of Strasbourg in 1939). Pierre Gandon studied in Paris at the

École Estienne L'école Estienne is the traditional name of the l'École supérieure des arts et industries graphiques (ESAIG) (Graduate School of Arts and Printing Industry). It is located at 18, Boulevard Auguste-Blanqui in the 13th arrondissement of Pari ...

, then at the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

. He won his first of many prizes in 1921 : the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

Stamp designer

Gandon answered an advertisement in a paper and finally obtained the right to design "Femme indigène", his first

series issued 1941 in the French colony of Dahomey. The same year was issued his first stamp for France : the

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

of Reims. Four times he received the Grand Prix de l'Art philatélique during his career that including: * « Haute couture parisienne» (Paris high sewing), drawn by Gandon, engraved by Jules Piel, France, 1953. * « La jeune fille de Bora Bora » (The Girl of Bora Bora), Drawn and Engraved by Gandon, French Polynesia, 1955. * « ''Les joueurs de cartes'' » (''Card Players''), painting by Paul Cézanne, France, 1961. This stamp was part of the first series of paintings that the French Post issued. * « ''La Dame à la licorne'' » (''The Lady and the Unicorn''), medieval tapestry, France, 1964. Among the most famous stamps designed and engraved by Gandon are two series of female allegories in common use of the 1940s, 1970s and 1980s: three French definitive stamps series : * Marianne de Gandon series issued at the end of the Second World War, * Sabine de Gandon series inspired by Jacques-Louis David's ''The Intervention of the Sabine Women'', issued during the 1970s, * and Liberté de Gandon series inspired by

Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix ( , ; 26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.Noon, Patrick, et al., ''Crossing the Channel: Britis ...

's ''

Liberty Leading the People ''Liberty Leading the People'' (french: La Liberté guidant le peuple ) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X. A woman of the people with a Phrygian cap personifying the conc ...

''. He was 82 years old when he engraved this stamp. His last stamp was issued for the ''Journée du timbre 1983''. In total, Pierre Gandon designed and/or engraved over 350 stamps for France and over double that number for the French Colonies. He designed the first stamps issued by the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

in December 1959.

References

* Stamps Review magazine, special issue No. 3, July–September 2003 * Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin, illustrations Pierre Gandon, 1937 Librairie des Amateurs, Ferroud Publishers, Paris ;Notes {{DEFAULTSORT:Gandon, Pierre 1899 births 1990 deaths People from L'Haÿ-les-Roses 20th-century engravers French engravers French illustrators French stamp designers Prix de Rome for engraving 20th-century French printmakers

Youth

Stamp designer

See also

References