Toronto 
Credit: Canada Post
Canada Post has released new stamp issues featuring a traditional painting of the Nativity and three colourful and festive scenes painted by Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis for its holiday season stamps this year. The agency announced the choice of the works by the late artist today in a news release.
In the stamp bearing sacred imagery, the central figures of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus, the stamp also includes an ox and a donkey – two additions made popular by St. Francis of Assisi is designed by Soapbox Design and illustrated by Sandra Dionisi. The Permanent domestic rate stamp is available in a booklet of 12. The official First Day Cover is cancelled in Sainte-Famille, Quebec.
This year’s secular holiday stamps, designed by Hélène L’Heureux, feature three festive scenes by Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. The paintings used for the new stamps are from seasonal works held in the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Work By Maud Lewis; Credit: Canada Post
The issue features seasonal works from the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax: Winter Sleigh Ride (12-stamp booklet at the Permanent™ domestic rate), Team of Oxen in Winter (six-stamp booklet at the U.S. rate) and Family and Sled (six-stamp booklet at the international rate). A souvenir sheet, depicting Lewis’ whimsical cats, and a souvenir sheet Official First Day Cover, cancelled in Digby, Nova Scotia.
Lewis’s lively depictions of rural life gained her national and international recognition towards the end of her life and in the decades after her death in 1970.
Work By Maud Lewis; Credit: Canada Post
Her works largely feature sights she would have seen around her tiny home in Marshalltown, near Digby, N.S.
Her paintings, which once sold for as little as two dollars, have become prized in recent years, in part as a result of the 2016 biopic “Maudie,” which rekindled interest in her story.
Work By Maud Lewis; Credit: Canada Post
Though the works are joyful, Lewis’s life was marked by poverty, health issues and poor treatment from her loved ones.
Born in 1903, she lived most of her life in pain from rheumatoid arthritis, which left her hands gnarled and limited her ability to paint.
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With Files From The Canadian Press.
