New pop art stamps with the Czech president refer to the national anthem, “mushrooming” and Jawa motorcycles
Sberatel.info
19. May, 2023
After much anticipation not only among philatelists, the newly elected Czech President Petr Pavel presented an official postage stamp with his portrait. It has a total of ten different colour variants, a stamp price of 23 CZK (EUR 1) and will only be available in a full sheet with all ten colours for 230 CZK (EUR 10).
Along with the stamps, Petr Pavel presented a series of official portraits in the same variety of colours, which are traditionally placed in school classrooms and government offices.
“My vision was not to have any portrait or any stamp, because it is not exactly a way of presentation that is my own. But when I saw the response from people who wanted a portrait of the president in schools or offices, I finally gave the green light to the creative team to take it on. I am very happy with the result and I believe that everyone who is waiting for a portrait or a stamp will be happy,” said President Peter Paul.
The colourful concept is meant to symbolise the diversity of the Czech lands. “The Czech Republic is a country full of colours. And each of those colours contains a reference to a place, an event or a thing that we carry in our hearts. There are countless of them. So we have chosen at least a few of them that each of us knows well and speak to us in a familiar voice,” explained the creators of the graphic design of the stamps.
“For example, we were inspired by the lyrics of the national anthem, in which pine forests rustle across the rocks. We also took inspiration from the Czech landscape, nature, specifically the national tree, the linden.” Other colours refer, for example, to the popular Czech hobby of “mushroom picking”, craftsmanship or the countryside. The red colour represents the legendary Czech motorcycles Jawa, for which the red colour was typical.
The self-adhesive stamps, printed by offset in the Hradištko printing house, were produced in an edition of 100,000 sheets, i.e. one million stamps in total.
The official photo of the president and the presidential couple is available for download on the website www.hrad.cz and in photo library www.profimedia.cz.
The stamps with the new Czech President, like other stamps of the Czech Post, will be available for purchase at the international fair Sberatel / Collector, which will take place from 8 to 9 September 2023 at the PVA Expo Prague.
JJ, photo: Czech Post
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