TA B L E O F CO N T E N T S
Forward
Introduction
Dedication
Preface
CHAPTER 1:
Genesis of an Artist
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
v
vii
ix
xi
1
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
Endnotes
References
297
298
298
iii
INTRODUCTION
T
his 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
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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
Patriotic 11a
Patriotic 11b
Patriotic 11c
Patriotic 12a
Patriotic 12b
Patriotic 13a
Patriotic 13b
Patriotic 14a
263
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Dorothy Knapp: Philately and Family
MISCELLANEOUS ART PROJECTS
Dutchess Philatelic Society Banquet 1942