Lighthouses in Brittany

Heleen (the Netherlands) sent this postcard with a painting of the famous lighthouse or Ar-Men, and an adventure from 100 years ago:

Achille Beltrame (1871-1945). "The keeper of the lighthouse of Ar Men, on the French coast, had remained isolated from the mainland for 53 days due to bad weather conditions. He managed, thanks to a dangerous acrobatic journey, to return to land (1926).

The same lighthouse appears on the following postcard sent by Fabienne (France):

And some more lighthouses in Brittany, all sent by Fabienne as well:

Île Vierge

St-Georges-de-Didonne

La Vieille

Loooong

I received a perfect postcard of the lighthouse of Roter Sand (='Red Sand'), in the North Sea. 

The envelope is also perfect. Even the postmark looks like waves!

But you cannot believe how long the postcard is!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Latest Lighthouses

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you might know that I have a collection of lighthouses on postcards and stamps (my only proper collections, actually). 

These are the latest I have got:

"Pingelturm" lighthouse, mouth of the Weser, Bremerhaven
Germany

Whiteford
UK

Il-Fanal ta' Ġurdan, Gozo (Malta)

Texel
The Netherlands

Westkapelle (I think)

Sent by Brigitte (Germany), Laura (the UK), Fabienne (France) and Heleen (the Netherlands).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
July theme: WAYMARKERS

• Week 1 - Maps
• Week 2 - Lighthouses
• Week 3 - Cathedrals
• Week 4 - Towers

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Here Comes the Sun (I)

Postcard sent by Phillip (the USA), with matching stamps. It is difficult to take a proper picture of these foiled stamps...

Philarmonic

Vitebsk Regional Philharmonic (Lenin Square, Vitebsk, Belarus). Sent by Mary trhough the Postcrossing site.

German stamp from 2017 featuring Elbphilarmonie.

Metropolitan Opera of New York. 1983 USA stamp.

Mail from Other Worlds

Postcrossing postcard sent by Laura (the USA).

Star Wars postcard sent by Bryon (the USA), with perfectly matching stamps & postmarks. The Droids stamps were issued in April 2021.

Letter sent by Alan (the UK), bearing a stamp from the Classic Science-Fiction April issue: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Post Office Murals

Mural of Cincinnati (detail)
Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)

US Post Office lobby artwork painted in the 1930s and 1940s was celebrated on 10 April 2019 with the issuance of the Post Office Murals Forever stamps.

The origin of Post Office murals can be traced back to 1933. That year, in a letter to longtime acquaintance President Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist George Biddle suggested that the U.S. government should commission artists in need of work to enliven the walls of public buildings. Later that year, perhaps spurred by Biddle’s plea, the Roosevelt administration established the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The New Deal program led to the hiring of more than 3,700 artists.

From 1934 through 1943, the Section commissioned more than 1,000 murals. The buildings were some of the country’s most widely trafficked public spaces, which meant many people could enjoy the murals.

Each of the pane's 10 stamps features a detail of one of five unique murals.

Sugarloaf Mountain, 1940
Rockville, Maryland

The work of Judson Smith (1880–1962) appears in Post Office locations in Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Painted in oil on canvas, Sugarloaf Mountain depicts the small peak located near Frederick, Maryland. The Post Office in Rockville, Maryland, where the mural was initially installed is now a police station.

Antelope, 1939 
Florence, Colorado

The Section of Fine Arts commissioned artist Olive Rush (1873–1966) to create murals displayed at public buildings in Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico, where she lived. Painted with tempera, Antelope features a herd of pronghorn, which are sometimes referred to as American antelope. The mural hangs in the lobby of the Florence Post Office in Colorado.

Mountains and Yucca, 1937
Deming, New Mexico

Painted in oil on canvas by Kenneth Miller Adams (1897–1966), Mountains and Yucca depicts Cookes Range, located in southwestern New Mexico just north of the Deming Post Office where the mural is displayed. This landscape is rendered in soft colors and features yucca shrubs and trees and other plant life.

Kiowas Moving Camp, 1936
Anadarko, Oklahoma

One of the Kiowa Six, a group of 20th-century Native-American artists hailing from Oklahoma, Stephen Mopope (1899–1974) designed a multi-part mural depicting Plains Indian life. Mopope and Kiowa Six artists James Auchiah (1906–1974) and Spencer Asah (ca. 1906–1954) painted 16 murals with tempera paint directly to the plaster walls in the lobby, including Kiowas Moving Camp. They can be seen at the Anadarko Post Office in Oklahoma.

Air Mail, 1941
Piggott, Arkansas

Daniel Rhodes (1911–1989) created murals that adorn public buildings and Post Office walls in the Midwest. Painted in oil on canvas, Air Mail depicts a letter carrier helping pilots load bags of mail onto their plane. The mural, which hangs in the lobby of the Piggott Post Office in Arkansas, is an ode to postal workers’ commitment to serving communities across the United States and beyond.

Information taken form here. Stamps sent by Bryon and Phillip (the USA).

Cookery Postcards

The Culinary Institute of America

(California Campus) 

Both postcards sent by Bryon (the USA). Don't you find very curious the second one? I am not sure I have tasted any of those salads...

French Salads Named After French Women 

By Naz Şahin Özcan, 2015

Postcard received from Helen (Russia), through the Postcrossing site. I was surprised it was written in Spanish! I am posting also the back because of the nice postmark and the also delicious stamp featuring a pineapple.

As you can see, it includes the recipe of the pancake... in Russian, of course.

Two more Postcrossing postcards:

Taiwanese Food

Singapore Chilli Crab

Postcard sent by Claire (the USA). An illustration from the children's book A Trip to Delicious, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Hayelin Choi.


The following postcard sent by Laura shows a book cover: Good Dishes from Tinned Food, by Ambrose Heath, 1943:

Also sent by Laura: If I can include here tinned food... why not ham sandwiches?

Pizza Menu Letter

 I like the letters that Bryon (USA) writes on menus... Have you ever sent one of these?

Sunday Stamps | Z for Zoo

The stamp above was issued in June 2014, in order to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Parc Zoologique de Paris (France), and its reopening after more than 2 years of works.  The species represented are a lemur, a jaguar, a flamingo and a giraffe.

Issued on 14 August 2015, to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of St. Petersburg's Zoo.

The stamp below was issued in 2013, also to celebrate the 100 years of Burger's Zoo in Arnhem (the Netherlands). Looking at the species pictured on the stamp, I discovered extra z: It is a zwartvoetpinguin (Spheniscus demersus, 'black-footed penguin'), from Zuid-Afrika (South Africa).

This stamp of a gewone zeehond (Phoca vitulina, 'harbour seal') had to be present on this post...

Thanks for coming along this round of Sunday Stamps A-Z. I hope you have enjoyed it!