Cape Shore Feb, 1996
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Subject: Stamps

the stampIn addition to his work showing the land, the architecture, the boats and the people of Newfoundland, Christopher Pratt has made works based on various emblems of Newfoundland.

Most of these emblematic works are silkscreen enlargements based on Newfoundland stamps. Pratt says that the works in the Philatelic Series, as it is called, were made as souvenirs of Newfoundland as an independent political and economic entity which no longer existed. The subjects in this series were all real stamps from Newfoundland's past. They were all enlarged about twenty times, but it is important to know that this enlargement was done by hand and not by photographic methods. Because the stamps were stencilled by hand, the lines and curves are much sharper than they would have been if they had been mechanically enlarged.

The stamps are different from Pratt's other work because they all include lettering, scrollwork and decoration, which are otherwise almost never present. In fact, he has said that making these prints was something of a "busman's holiday," as they allowed him to use these visual devices without the aesthetic responsibility. He was just adding his touch to something that had already been done.

In total, 15 stamp works were made between 1968 and 1974. Some have a perforated border, such as 1968's The Stamp (2¢ Cod) and some, like Victoria Regina (1971), do not. Some were printed in "blocks of four" and in alternate colours in reference to things which interest philatelists, or stamp collectors. One thing Pratt considered doing, but never did, was to print cancelled stamps, as they would be on mailed envelopes. In fact, he went so far as to make a woodcut block with the cancellation mark but, in the end, could not use it. As he says, "I couldn't bring myself to deface the stamps I had made."


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Labrador, 1970