Public art goes postal

Landmark sculptures and statues around Jersey are being celebrated in a new set of six commemorative stamps featuring images by photographer Andy Le Gresley.

As a Jersey photographer, Andy specialises in clean, vibrant images and the stunning local landscape is one of his favourite subjects. The stamps in his set have the sculptures as a focal point, but each is set against a beautiful scenic backdrop.

The 56p stamp shows St Helier’s Le Traveilleux d’cauchie, or the Docker, a 1994 sculpture by Colin Miller. Set outside Jersey Museum, it reminds passers-by that of the island’s maritime heritage –and that dockers used to haul in the fishing boats by hand.

The statue on the 82p stamp is of King George ll. Lording it over Royal Square in St Helier in Roman dress, it’s one of the UK’S best surviving examples of lead sculpture. Also in St

Helier and on a Classical theme, the

Centaur & Cupid statue on the 91p stamp is a copy of a Greco-roman antiquity in the Louvre that was discovered in the grounds of Chateau des Roches in St Brelade in 1995.

Moving to a more modern age, the £1.20 stamp shows the granite

St Malo sculpture, which was commissioned from Derek Tristram to commemorate the 1995 Channiland rescue when more than 300 people were saved from drowning after a catamaran ferry hit a rock.

The £1.37 stamp shows one of St Helier’s most idiosyncratic sculptures – Le Crapaud, a response to the historical French habit of referring to Jersey inhabitants as toads. The toad has become an island symbol, and this warty amphibian, who squats one top of a nine-foot column in an area that was originally marshland, was created by Gordon Young in 2004.

The final stamp in the set (1.75) shows Swimmers ll, an exhilarating fountain and group sculpture of two humans and two dolphins by Philip Jackson situated in St Helier’s Jardin de la Mer.

Issue date: 16 July, www.jerseystamps.com