News Releases

Take me to the river: Canada Post salutes the addition of Dorothy Knowles to its Art Canada stamp series

April 3, 2006

On April 7, Canada Post will once again exhibit the work of one of our most accomplished artists to millions of homes and businesses with two new stamps featuring breathtaking works by Canadian painter Dorothy Knowles. The domestic rate stamp (51 cents) will feature The Field of Rapeseed, the U.S. rate stamp (89 cents), North Saskatchewan River.

As it adds these works to its Art Canada series, Canada Post will also commemorate the life and work of this gifted artist whose paintings communicate the shapes and colours of her native Saskatchewan. Dorothy Elsie Knowles was born on April 7, 1927 in Unity, Saskatchewan, a small town west of Saskatoon, near the Alberta border. The family farm was located on the northern section of the Canadian prairie in an area known as the parkland - a belt of agricultural land studded with poplar bluffs.

After experimenting with different styles, Knowles decided to work outdoors from life, as it were. Knowles and her van became a common sight to farmers as she took to the back roads to paint the prairie landscape. In the 1970s, she traveled to the south and west of Saskatchewan, into the badlands and foothills, where her paintings became more complex and as big as the outdoors she was capturing - canvases as big as six by eight feet. Another change was a move to large still-lifes and "garden paintings" - something between landscape and still-life traditions.

A critically acclaimed painter, her work has been featured at major exhibitions in Canada and abroad, and is included in collections all over Canada and in a number of other countries. Her painting, Saskatchewan, Brown Shadows, was selected in 1982 to represent Saskatchewan in the Canada Day postage stamp series, Canada Through the Eyes of its Artists. This gifted painter, who captures her feelings for her province with the eyes of the heart, is also a Member of the Order of Canada.

Hélène L'Heureux, who designed the Year of the Rooster (2005) stamp, the Snowman Christmas stamp (2005), and the YMCA (2001) and Hockey Night in Canada (1999) commemoratives, created a visual framework in keeping with Knowles's palette. The domestic rate stamp, measuring 45.5 mm x 32 mm, will be available in panes of 16 stamps. The U.S. rate stamp, measuring 43 mm x 52 mm, will be offered with the domestic rate stamp on a souvenir sheet. Lowe-Martin will print three million of the domestic rate stamps and 300,000 souvenir sheets of two stamps. The stamps will be printed using nine-colour lithography and P.V.A. gum on Tullis Russell Coatings paper. The stamps are general tagged on all four sides with 13+ perforations.

Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the Newsroom section of Canada Post's website, and downloadable high-resolution photos of the Dorothy Knowles commemorative stamps are in the Newsroom's Photo Centre. Stamps and Official First Day covers will be available at participating post offices, can be ordered online by following the links at Canada Post's website www.canadapost.ca, or by mail-order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA call toll-free: 1-800-565-4362 and from other countries call: (902) 863-6550.