7.18 Cubic feet (10 letter size document boxes, 3 legal size document boxes, one tall document box, and one oversize folder.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
New Bern (N.C.)
Fort Greely (Alaska)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
Date:
1992-2015
Summary:
Phil Jordan was a Stamp Art Director for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Jordan's involvement with the USPS started in 1991 and ended 23 years later having worked on 300 stamps. The collection consists primarily of stamp design files created and maintained by Jordan during his time as a Stamp Art Director for the United States Postal Service (USPS) from 1991 to 2014. The majority of the files relate to stamps that were issued by the USPS while a smaller portion of the files are related to unissued stamps that Jordan worked on. As a Stamp Art Director, Jordan was responisbile for leading and providing direction for stamp designs and regularly worked with researchers, artists, painters, illustrators, photographers, and typographers to bring to fruition an aesthetic vision for each stamp.
Scope and Contents:
The Phil Jordan collection consists primarily of stamp design files created and maintained by Jordan during his time as a Stamp Art Director for the United States Postal Service (USPS) from 1991 to 2013. The majority of the files relate to stamps that were issued by the USPS while a smaller portion of the files are related to unissued stamps that Jordan worked on. As a Stamp Art Director, Jordan was responsible for leading and providing direction for stamp designs and regularly worked with researchers, artists, painters, illustrators, photographers, and typographers to bring to fruition an aesthetic vision for each stamp.
Of the some 300 stamps Jordan was responsible for, some that are represented in this collection include stamps related to hospice care (Jordan consider his work on this stamp to be amongst the most rewarding); legends of baseball; the Civil War Sesquicentennial; legends of Hollywood; the Indianapolis 500; literary arts; Owney the postal dog; the Washington, D.C. cherry blossom centennial; bicycling; ʻĪd al-Fiṭr; Grand Central Terminal in New York City; the USS Arizona Memorial; Wilt Chamberlain; the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Coast Guard; and the 50th anniversary of supersonic flight.
In addition, there are portfolios that provide visual documentation of Jordan's work on stamps, correspondence related to stamp design inquiries, and some biographical information.
Materials in the collection include correspondence, drawings, illustrations, color photographs, color transparencies, maps, news releases, notes, research materials, brochures, and clippings. Some materials are in electronic format.
Many of the stamps that Jordan worked on as Stamp Art Director can be found at the National Postal Museum.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into five series.
Series
Series 1: Issued Stamps Issued Stamps, 1999-2011
Series 2: Unissued Stamps, 1998-2006
Series 3: Portfolios, 1993-2015
Series 4: General Files, 1992-2013
Series 5: Oversize, 1994-2015
Biographical / Historical:
Phil Jordan was a Stamp Art Director for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Jordan's involvement with the USPS started in 1991 and ended 23 years later having worked on 300 stamps.
Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina and attended East Carolina University. After a period of service with the Army Arctic Indoctrination School in Fort Greely, Alaska, Jordan graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. Early in his career he worked as an artist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Baughman Company offset lithographers while attending school on the GI Bill.
Later he worked at the advertising agency Robert Kline and Co. Inc. as their art supervisor before serving as the assistant art director the United States Chamber of Commerce. Next, he joined Beveridge and Associates, Inc. guiding art direction for corporate, institutional and government design projects. Eventually becoming a partner at the firm, Jordan left after 18 years to form his own communications consulting firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, the National Air and Space Museum, and Smithsonian Books.
Jordan was responsible for the original formats of the Air and Space and Smithsonian magazines and was their Design Director for fifteen years. From there his work as consulting art director for the United States Postal Service's Stamp Development Department saw him art direct and produce 300 postage stamps as well as other stamp collateral publications for 23 years. Among some of the stamps he worked on include the 2011 Neon! Celebrate stamp, the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Stars stamps, the 2013 Civil War stamps; the 2012 Cherry Blossom Centennial stamps; the 1997 Classic American Aircraft stamps; and the 2003 First Flight stamp.
Jordan's work has been featured in a number of exhibitions and in publications such as Graphis, Society of Illustrators, and Communication Arts. A recipient of professional awards from these organizations over the years, he was also the recipient of the NASA Group Achievement Award. He is a past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington and was an avid glider pilot, being a founding member of the Skyline Soaring Club and the former long-time editor of Skylines newsletter.
Provenance:
Donated by Phil Jordan, 2015. This collection was initially part of the museum collections (Accession 2015.2015), but was released to the NPM Archives in December 2023.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Access to original archival materials is by appointment only. Researchers must submit request for appointment in writing. Please direct reference inquiries to the National Postal Museum Archives: NPM_Archives@si.edu.
Rights:
The National Postal Museum Archives makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and the NPM Rights and Reproductions for additional information. Please direct reference inquiries to the National Postal Museum Archives: NPM_Archives@si.edu.
The papers of African American sculptor, painter, and land artist Beverly Buchanan measure 18 linear feet and 34.2 gigabytes, and date from 1912 to 2017 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. The collection contains biographical material, including audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence; writings; and exhibition and project files, including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery. Material related to professional activities; personal business records; printed material, including born-digital and audiovisual records; scrapbooks; photographic material, including photograph albums; and artwork are also found in the collection.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American sculptor, painter, and land artist Beverly Buchanan measure 18 linear feet and 34.2 gigabytes, and date from 1912 to 2017 with the bulk of the material dating from the 1970s to the 1990s. The collection contains biographical material, including audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence; writings; and exhibition and project files, including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery. Material related to professional activities; personal business records; printed material, including born-digital and audiovisual records; scrapbooks; photographic material, including photograph albums; and artwork are also found in the collection.
The Beverly Buchanan papers contain biographical material including address books, calendars, awards and education certificates, identification documents, family history research material, and audiovisual and born-digital interview recordings; correspondence with friends and colleagues including Lucy Lippard and Lowery Stokes Sims, and with galleries and museums such as Bernice Steinbaum Gallery/Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art. Also included are writings such as artist's statements, journals and notebooks, notes, and writings by others about Beverly Buchanan; exhibition and project files including audiovisual documentation from Bernice Steinbaum Gallery and Steinbaum Krauss Gallery of various exhibitions; material related to professional activities including teaching files and grant and fellowship applications; personal business records such as sales and consignment records; printed material including clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, magazines, posters, audiovisual and born-digital recordings, including A World of Art profile, and other published material; and scrapbooks, including one documenting Buchanan's City Walls series, containing primarily photographs and artwork with some printed material. The collection also contains photographic material including photographs, snapshots, negatives, and photograph albums; and artwork including sketchbooks, drawings, folded cardboard artwork, and illustrated cards.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged as ten series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1917-2015 (Box 1, Boxes 19-20, Box 24; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1954, 1967-2017 (Boxes 1-2; 0.9 linear feet; ER01, 0.017 GB)
Series 3: Writings, 1960-circa 2009 (Boxes 2-3, Box 24; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Exhibition and Project Files, 1974-2001, 2010-2017 (Boxes 3-4, Box 24, OV 21, FCs 22-23; 1.9 linear feet; ER02, 0.020 GB)
Series 5: Professional Activities, 1962, 1979-2005 (Box 4, Box 19, Box 24; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1966-2010 (Box 4; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Printed Material, 1912, 1923-2014 (Boxes 4-7, Box 19, Box 25, OV 21; 3.9 linear feet)
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1970-circa 1977 (Box 7, Box 20; 0.3 linear feet)
Series 9: Photographic Material, circa 1920s-2013 (Boxes 7-13, Boxes 16-18, Box 20; 8.8 linear feet; ER03, 1.03 GB)
Series 10: Artwork, 1956-2013, undated (Boxes 13-15, Box 20; 0.7 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Beverly Buchanan (1940-2015) was an African American sculptor, painter, and land artist in Macon, Georgia. Born in Fuquay, North Carolina and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Buchanan studied medical technology at Bennett College before going on to earn two master's degrees in parasitology and public health from Columbia University in 1968 and 1969. Her artistic career began in 1971 when she enrolled in a class at the Art Students League in New York City taught by Norman Lewis. She moved to Georgia in 1977.
Buchanan is most well known for her "shack" sculptures and paintings, depictions of houses tied to Southern identity and memory.
Buchanan has been included in exhibitions at institutions such as Cinque Gallery, Truman Gallery, the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, GA, the Chrysler Museum, and a traveling retrospective exhibition organized by the Montclair Art Museum. Her work is included in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Beverly Buchanan has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Anonymous Was a Woman Award, and the Women's Caucus for Art lifetime achievement award, among others. She died in 2015 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Provenance:
The Beverly Buchanan papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2018 by Jane Bridges, and in 2021 by Bridges and Susan Welsh, Buchanan's executors.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.