TABLE OF CONTENTS Forward v Introduction vii Dedication ix Preface xi CHAPTER 1: Genesis of an Artist 1 CHAPTER 2: Dorothy Knapp First Day Covers 21 Identifying Dorothy Knapp s Work for Weigand 26 About the Photo Plates 29 1932 Washington Bicentennial Issue 39 National Parks Year Issue 49 1939 Presidential Issue 62 Presidential Issue Booklets, Coils and Electric Eye 68 1940 Famous Americans Issue 74 Famous American Stamp Album 85 Overrun Countries Issue 129 Post 1980 Production First Day Covers 183 State Birds And Flowers Issue of 1982 203 Air Mail First Day Covers 238 Transport Issue First Day Covers 239 Air Mail Special Delivery, Special Delivery and Official Mail First Day Covers 253 Postal Stationery First Day Covers 255 Air Mail Postal Stationery First Day Covers 256 CHAPTER 3: WWII Patriotic Designs 259 Numbered Set of 20 Patriotics Including All Known Varieties 260 Numbered Set of 20 Patriotics Produced in Black and White 266 War Related Event Covers 268 Miscellaneous Patriotic Covers Arranged in Postmark Date Order 272 CHAPTER 4: International First Day Covers and U.S. Events 277 International First Day Covers 278 U.S. Event Covers 281 Personal Family Event Covers 288 Miscellaneous Art Projects 290 Dutchess Philatelic Society Banquet 1942 290 Little Worldwide Stamp Album 291 Topical Album Pages 293 Index 297 Endnotes 298 References 298 iii
INTRODUCTION This book is a compilation of the life and artwork of Dorothy Knapp (1907-1986). Dorothy Knapp, besides having been a wife, mother and grade school art teacher, is the most famous cachet artist in United States philately, the collection and study of postage stamps and mail. Cachet artists use envelopes to express creative designs. It is important to understand the motivation and personality of an artist to truly appreciate this expression. This book will paint this picture and introduce you to this incomparable artist. The cachets within this work include First Day Covers from the United States and other countries, World War II Patriotic event covers and a variety of miscellaneous events such as holidays, stamp shows and various historic events. Various other art projects are included including topical stamp album pages. These pages are included as the title page for each chapter and the entire set of 8 are illustrated in Chapter 4. First Day Covers are souvenirs of the first day a stamp was available for sale to the public. The stamp was affixed to an envelope and postmarked on the first day of its issue typically in a city related to the stamps topic. Artists then applied a rubberstamped, hand-painted or printed cachet to the cover related to this topic or person. This same process can be applied to the first day a ship was launched, a first flight was made, the inauguration of a president or any other event of interest. When Dorothy Knapp began painting cachets in the 1930s, there were relatively few artists hand-drawing and hand-painting covers producing more than one similar or identical design for sale or trade. Philatelists call envelopes that have been through the mail covers. Most of the cachets from this period were printed by machine. Current cachet catalogs show dozens and dozens of designs by collectors producing one of a kind hand-drawn or hand-painted examples for their own collections, however there were relatively few artists working commercially in philately as was Dorothy. No other 20th century artist has the far reaching impact on their contemporaries or the hobby today as does Dorothy Knapp. Dorothy Knapp s use of color and the manner in which she covered the space of an envelope revolutionized the art form, creating movement and drama. Her skilled use of shading created a third dimension where so many other artists designs lie flat on the paper. Her work elicits profound emotional responses like none other among her peer group at the height of her production. She was named cachet maker of the decade for 1940-1949, cachet maker for the quarter century for 1926-1950 and cachet maker for the half century for 1900-1950 by the American First Day Cover Society. Philately is a hobby that is slow to change and the lack of acceptance of handpainted or hand-drawn work limited the number of artists and the volume of material produced for many years. Dorothy s covers were produced in quantities of less than 50 making them scarce in today s marketplace. Most artists participating in the field had their work printed, enabling them to produce hundreds or thousands of covers using professional printers or their own print machines. First day cover purists preferred printed cachets making hand-painted covers less than main stream until the 1970s and they are still resisted by many today. Nonetheless, her work clearly impacted many of her contemporaries in the 1940s and onward. There vii
viii Dorothy Knapp: Philately and Family are many artists today who collect her work and attribute Dorothy as a profound influence on their own designs. Without her devotion to her family, there would have been no work in philately by this artist. She painted these beautiful envelopes because of her family, stopped painting them for the same reason and started again for her son and granddaughters. For Dorothy, this hobby was entirely about her family. Nothing in her interviews, hundreds of letters or her journal would lead anyone to believe that she did this for herself or the philatelic community to any real extent. Dorothy did not attend stamp shows, subscribe to any philatelic publications and was not a member of any philatelic organization. Her family was central to her being and philately was a way to give of herself and share her gift with them. Dorothy never painted covers for herself and she never kept a collection nor a portfolio of her work at any time. She did regret not keeping a portfolio of her work later. It wasn t because she was nostalgic about her work. It was because collectors and historians would later ask dozens of questions about her early work that she didn t have answers for and because she had discovered the market value of her work had risen dramatically. This book attempts to illustrate the complete works of this prolific artist and is the most extensive compilation of her work to date. More importantly to this end, dogged pursuit of hundreds of never before recorded images have revealed new information and told a story Dorothy is no longer around to tell. There are undoubtedly a few varieties and designs unrecorded in this exhaustive effort to document her work. Submissions are welcome and encouraged for future editions. Dorothy produced drawings to become printed works for a variety of philatelic firms. These have been pictured and well covered in The Cachet Catalog of Staehle & Knapp by Douglas Parks and are not reproduced here. The covers in this book are entirely hand-drawn and hand-painted. A few exceptions of printed material are included as a means to tell this story. Everything known about Dorothy s life and work has been obtained from a couple of brief interviews done in the 1980s and from her only son Wally Knapp and his wife Mary. Wally inherited letters, a journal and many documents that proved invaluable in the production of this book. With the permission of the family I have pulled two of the many stories from her journal and reproduced them within in Dorothy's own writing. There have been many articles written over the years in the philatelic press with a variety of conflicting facts and conjecture. The endnotes in this book represent the most authoritative sources especially articles submitted by Wally for First Days magazine. Wally Knapp and Douglas Weisz 2014
Chapter 1 Genesis of an Artist 5 Rhinebeck Middle School is where she met Maxwell Raymond Knapp in 1934. Max was born to a family of farmers in central New York in 1908. An English and German surname, Knapp comes from the Old English term cnoepp meaning summit or a hilltop. Not taken by farming, he instead attended a free teaching college. Max was the first of his family to go to college and upon graduation from teachers college in 1929 he took his first full-time job as a junior high school math and science teacher in Rhinebeck. His real interest was history, but as jobs were scarce, he took what was available just as Dorothy had done when she graduated from college. As a result, he taught math and science for 40 years, never switching to history. He transferred his passion for history to his already strong interest in philately, a perfect marriage for so many interested in this hobby. Dorothy Dorothy and Max in a silly pose Straight shooter Max Knapp
144 Dorothy Knapp: Philately and Family 934-1 934-2 on Adam Bert 934-3 1980s version 935-1 935-2 on Adam Bert 935-3 1980s design 936-1 936-2
Chapter 3 WWII Patriotic Designs 263 Patriotic 11a Patriotic 11b Patriotic 11c Patriotic 12a Patriotic 12b Patriotic 13a Patriotic 13b Patriotic 14a
290 Dorothy Knapp: Philately and Family MISCELLANEOUS ART PROJECTS Dutchess Philatelic Society Banquet 1942