David Gentleman: artist and stamp designer

With 103 issued stamps and countless additional designs to his name, David Gentleman’s work masterfully blends contrasting techniques, unified by his distinctive and unmistakable style.

This blog post will look at the origins of David’s first stamp designs, his life as a designer and artist, and his most notable influences on British stamp design. 

David Gentleman in his home studio, 2000

The early years

David, born in London in 1930 to artist parents with left wing tendencies, attended St Albans School of Art and went on to study graphic design and illustration at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1950.

At the RCA, David was under the mentorship of some influential figures in the mid-20th century British art scene, known for their expertise in landscape and design. These formative years shaped David’s rich creative legacy and his inclination towards left-leaning political views. 

David has embraced a diverse range of styles throughout his career, showcasing his artistic versatility and the depth of his training, including watercolour, wood engravings, graphic design, and lithography.

An example of his wood engraving can be seen on a far larger scale than the postage stamps for which he is best known. In 1978 he was commissioned to design the full platform–length mural at Charing Cross Underground station, which depicts the 13th century construction of the monument directly above the station. Wood engraving is a relief printmaking technique, where intricate designs are carved into hardwood, with the raised areas inked and stamped onto a printable surface to create detailed prints. 

Charring Cross Underground Station Mural

Stamp design

His first introduction to stamp design was in 1962 when he designed the stamps for the National Productivity Year commemorative issue. His designs were chosen by the Stamp Advisory Committee, beating eight other artists’ entries to the commission. The Stamp Advisory Committee, which is still active today, decides what topics will be featured on stamps. They also select the successful designs they feel best match the original brief, for both design and relevance. 

National Productivity Year Stamp

David was first approached in 1961 to submit designs for the National Productivity Year stamp issue, due to his reputation as a forward-thinking illustrator and graphic designer. This paved the way for his extensive contribution as a stamp designer – an endeavour he had previously no intention of pursuing.  

Gentleman was asked back again and again to submit his designs for stamp issues and often (but not always) won the commission. The following years saw a prolific period where he designed numerous stamps including for The Shakespeare Festival, 1964 utilising wood engraved designs and the Battle of Britain 25th Anniversary stamps of 1965, where he blended realism and a strong narrative focus in his illustrative designs, whilst utilising a muted palette. These stamps were groundbreaking as they saw a departure from the conservative ideas within the Post Office at the time.  

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David’s Shakespeare Festival stamp set was undoubtedly the catalyst for his commission in 1968 to redesign the front covers of the Shakespeare series for Penguin Books, for which he adopted the same engraving style. 

The Queen’s stamps

David Gentleman was able to channel his boundary pushing approach to design in 1964, following Labour coming into power and the subsequent appointment of Tony Benn as Postmaster General. The pair embarked on an endeavour to widen the scope of stamps and, controversially, to remove the Queen’s head from them altogether. The rationale was as an artistic objection to the problem of producing a design around the dominating presence the Queen’s profile image (the Wilding portrait).

4d Stamp, designed by David Gentleman featuring the “Awkward” Wilding portrait, 1963.

Gentlemen was asked by Benn to design conceptual stamp designs which omitted the Queen’s head, instead being replaced by ‘GREAT BRITAIN’ or by an emblem of sovereignty such as the crown or the Royal cypher. David also experimented by using a much smaller, silhouetted portrait of the Queen.

Once completed, Benn presented the portfolio of designs to the Queen at Buckingham Palace, who was known to show a keen interest in stamps. Following a careful review, the Queen decided against the removal of her profile but was happy to include a new silhouetted profile, thus providing a fresh yet familiar update. 

The legacy of the project changed the course of commemorative stamp design in Britain as the oversized and ‘awkward’ portrait of the Queen (as David considered it) was replaced by the smaller silhouetted portrait, often in the top corner.

David initially borrowed this portrait from the Mary Gillick coinage design, which featured on British coins from 1952 to 1968. The new smaller portrait meant stamp designers no longer had to shoehorn the previous pictorial head into their designs, which clashed with the aesthetic and integrity of their work. 

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David’s preferred smaller portrait of Queen Elizabeth was replaced in 1968 with a similar profile, designed specifically for stamps, by Arnold Machin. The Machin design was based on Gentleman’s initial image, as smaller silhouettes allowed stamp designers to have more freedom with their designs, thanks to David’s vision.

Gentleman’s work on revolutionising concepts for pictorial stamps set a global precedent, inspiring greater creative freedom in subjects and themes for stamp design. 

Thinking outside the box

The culmination of this work was David’s album of experimental designs, which we regard as a treasured item in The Postal Museum’s collection. The designs cover a myriad of ideas, styles and concepts including transport, landscapes, insects, fungi, and architecture. Some of the themes were later expanded and used for future stamp issues, but some simply remained conceptual.  

Page of experimental stamp designs

David, who has never had an assistant, was meticulous in his creative process, which is evident in the various stages of design we are lucky to have in the collection, much of which comprises the early draft designs, sketches and even research notes on the given subjects. David luckily retained everything that he worked on for each issue.

Early stages of the design for the Concorde stamps of 1969

A later example of David’s creative skillset can be seen in his designs for the BBC and Broadcasting History stamp issue of 1972, celebrating the organisations 50th anniversary. The loudspeaker horn was made by airbrushing Indian ink (once widely used in printing), onto coloured transparent film. The design displaying his ability to refine an idea down to an absolute minimum.  David mastered this approach with stamp design, given that the product is a piece of art on a tiny scale.  

Design for the BBC stamp, 1972

With so many wonderful creations, it’s no surprise David was awarded the coveted Phillips Gold Medal for stamp design in 1969 and 1979.  

David’s last issued stamps to date were for the Millennium Timekeeper miniature sheet set, released in 2000. The stamps celebrated timekeeping and scientific innovation. The symbolic representation of the clocks and the astronomical instruments, in Gentleman’s minimalist and evocative style, highlight how diverse he can be.  The concepts of his designs show a huge contrast to his earlier work 38 years prior, in his first effort for the National Productivity Year issue.  

Millennium Timekeeper Miniature sheet, Dec 1999

Other works

Outside of stamps, David has produced his own beautifully illustrated travel books, designed Penguin Classics book covers, created the iconic oak leaf logo for the National Trust and worked on coinage design. He has works in the collections of the V&A, Tate Britain, and the National Maritime Museum. He has been commissioned for countless watercolour landscapes, all from his studio in his London Georgian Town house where he has lived since 1970. 

David believes that people should pay more attention to what goes on around them, and that drawing is a wonderful way of doing this. I have been fortunate to visit David and his wife Sue at their home on several occasions, when David kindly donated large parts of his stamp related material to The Postal Museums collection. 

In 2022 David’s contributions to British stamp design were celebrated with the stamp issue ‘The Stamp Designs of David Gentleman,’ featuring some of the stamps he has produced over the years. The stamp issue honouring Gentleman’s work is a fitting tribute to an artist who changed the course of British stamp design. 

‘The Stamp Designs of David Gentleman’ Royal Mail Stamp Issue, 2022

You can explore more of David Gentleman’s works in our online Catalogue.