Shovel, vol. 107, May 2017

 

Shamir Brothers - Designers who became an icon, Elul Publishing - Visual Communication & Design, Tel Aviv 2016, 276 pages, Hebrew-English

 

The name Shamir Brothers is known to every collector of Israeli stamps as well as collectors of other countries and thematic collectors. In the new book that appeared last year and was donated to the Israel Philatelic Association library by Yoram Shamir, the Shamir Brothers' extensive work is presented. Among the pages of the book, the reader will find a selection of representative philatelic items chosen from about two thousand items designed by the Shamir brothers in 1949-1990 for the postal services of nineteen organizations and countries, including the Jewish National Fund, the United Nations, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, etc. The entire collection has been stored three years ago on the website www.shamir-brothers.com alongside posters and ads for Israel Post and the British Post Office. The philatelic information was drawn from catalogs in the Association library.

 

Dr. Malka Ben-Peshat, who conducted a comprehensive study of Shamir's entire work, paid special attention to the correspondence between Shamir and post offices and stamp agencies - Crown Agents in Britain, the United States Intergovernmental Philatelic Society inc. and the Government Printer in Israel.

 

The book presents individual stamps, series, souvenir sheets and first day covers. In the studio's documents there is evidence that the philatelic service also ordered postal stationary designs, but its catalogs do not mention the names of the designers of such postal stationary items.

 

How to choose two hundred philatelic items out of two thousand? "We wanted to illuminate lesser known areas in the Shamir brothers' creation, such as souvenir sheets for stamps from countries overseas," writes the editor, and stamps designed for Muslim countries have also passed under the radar of the Israeli collector. Of special interest are the stamps-on-stamps series designed by Shamir brothers that include previous stamps designed by them.

 

The book includes chapters on emblems, posters, banknotes, medals and coins, packaging and printed matter. Prof. Yarom Vardimon, the Israel Prize laureate in the field of design, refers to the Shamir brothers as "the national designers." For stamp collectors they were international designers.

 

This review is courtesy of the author of the book, Mr. Yoram Shamir. For further information and the possibility of purchase he can be contacted via: Yoshamir@inter.net.il