Upcoming stamp issues

Sarah Featon - Botanical Artist - Issue date: 5 May 2021 The Art Album of New Zealand Flora was the first full-colour art book published in New Zealand. It was produced by the Wellington-based firm Bock and Cousins, well-known stamp engravers at the time, and was praised as a ‘colonial work of art’. Firmly grounded in science, it also had popular appeal and shared mātauranga, Māori knowledge. Today, Sarah Featon’s vibrant watercolours are celebrated as works of art in their own right. Sarah and her husband Edward hoped the art album would inspire a love of New Zealand’s flora. Many of the plants illustrated and described by the Featons are now widely cultivated in botanic and home gardens around the world.

Date of issue:5 May 2021 Designer: Hannah Fortune, New Zealand Post, Wellington, New Zealand Printer: Southern Colour Print, Dunedin

Whānau Mārama - Family of Light - Issue date: 3 June 2020 Tamanuiterā (the Sun) and Marama (the Moon) together with Ngā Whetū Matariki (the Pleiades star cluster) make up the family of heavenly bodies known as Te Whānau Mārama (The Family of Light). Knowledge of the relationship between these celestial bodies has been handed down over time through wānanga (schools of learning) and pūrakau (folk stories) of Māori. This knowledge is integral to Māori tikanga (custom and practice) and is especially relevant to the whenūa (land) - agriculture, planting, harvesting - and the moana (oceans) - fishing, navigation and weather. A reacceptance of Matariki by Aotearoa New Zealand as a time to celebrate the Māori New Year has seen a rekindled interest in this old Māori knowledge. Tshis stamp issue illustrates the stories that have carried them through the generations.

Date of issue:7 July 2021 Designer: Dave Burke, Tauranga, New Zealand Printer: Southern Colour Print, Dunedin