Art on Belgian Stamps

Well-known Belgian artists

Four well-known Belgian artists took up the challenge to design a special postage stamp. Paramarenko, Jacques Charlier, Marie-Jo Lafontaine and Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven made fascinating works that will certainly appeal to contemporary art lovers.

Paramarenko

This year Paramarenko celebrates his sixtieth birthday. He is undoubtedly the best known of the quartet. He is generally acknowledged as one of the most important Belgian artists of his time. He follows in Leonardo da Vinci's footsteps and tries to realise the dream man has had from the earliest times: to fly on his own.

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven's oeuvre explores the healing role of art. Van Kerckhoven was born in 1951. She believes in the liberating force of artistic creation. The nude on the stamp is entitled "Construction". It was displayed at the exhibition "Moral Rearmament" that was organised in 1996. She wants to neutralise the negative meaning the nude female body has in modern society.

Jacques Charlier

An extraordinarily artist, Jacques Charlier (1939) has been active in both the national and the international art scene since the 1960s.
He uses and combines virtually all techniques. Mostly his works subtly undermine our artistic or social certitudes. The work shown on the stamp is a splendid evocation of what it is to be a Belgian.

Marie-Jo Lafontaine

Marie-Jo Lafontaine's video installations brought her international fame. Lafontaine was born in 1950. In 1999, she exhibited at the prestigious Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris.
The nightly roses depicted on the stamp are part of a series entitled "The Beauty of the Night", a set of huge photographs that were on display in 1995.
Date of stamp issue: 16 October 2000.