| Mary Faulconer, American (1912 - ?)
Mary Faulconer studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art where she taught in the Design Laboratory of the Museum School. She has in addition, served as Art Director of Mademoiselle Magazine and Harpers Bazaar. Her free lance work has appeared in Fortune, House and Garden, Life, Look, Seventeen, Town and Country and Vogue magazines. Among her credits is a painting reproduced for UNICEF in 1972 and a commission to design six postage stamps for the United States. This issue, the Rose stamp, was the first United States multi-color stamp in booklet form. The Rose booklet design features both a red and apricot rose and is unique in that it is not a commemorative stamp but, in postal terms, is a special issue stamp. Unlike a commemorative stamp, which is available for only 2 months, the sale period for the Rose booklet will be at least one year. It was issued July11, 1978 in Shreveport, Louisiana the home of the American Rose Society. Mary Faulconer was an ideal candidate for designing a postage stamp. Characteristically, though her work is small scale and detailed, she captures the full beauty and charm of her subject. Postage stamps, match boxes, playing cards, and antique tins have all been faithfully reproduced life-size by Mary in her trompe l'oeil technique. Mary is an exquisite and exacting artist whose paintings are physically and emotionally precise and self-sufficient. She imparts to a simple vase of flowers on a table all the mystery, joy and charm that recalls the delicacy of a poem. Mary Faulconer is an artist of real elegance in the finest American tradition. She combines early american primitivism, trompel'oeilandamagical super-realism, which in spite of her careful attention to detail, remains fresh and charming and not at all obsessive or rigid. She authentically render the softness of pansies, the delicate tint of egg shells, images which evokes happy nostalgia for idyllic springs and summers. Mary's work is luminous and peaceful, a world where a casual arrangement of lacy dried leaves or flowers touch upon perfection. Her paintings are clean and flawless gems, delicately and brilliantly realized.
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