Jeffery Matthews

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Jeffery Matthews is a British artist, specialised in postage stamp design. In this domain, he is known as the conceptor of the Machin definitive series' color palette since the 1980's.

[edit] Biography

During his interior design study, Matthews was taught heraldry and letter typography. He then became an illustrator and created logotypes, graphic and typographic designs for public administration, firms and book covers. He diminished these activities during the 1990s.^[1]

At the end of the 1950s, Matthews registered to the Council of Industrial Design, which proposed graphic artists to client entities. In 1959, he was amongst the designers the Council proposed to the Post Office ; the British postal administration was looking for the design of the two stamp series marking its 300th anniversary. While Matthews' proposals didn't appear on stamps, they get until the printing. He was then regularly invited to propose stamp projects. His two first postage stamps were issued in 1965 for the twenty years of the United Nations.^[1]

In the 1970s, he became involved in the designs of new Machin definitive stamps, picturing Queen Elizabeth II's profile since 1967. When ordered, he designed new symbols for the Regional Machins in 1971, new digits and letters.^[2]

But, philatelic recognition came from his work on the Machin serie colours. In 1976, he prepared the three colours needed for photograved high values. In the middle of the 1980s, he succeeded to provide the Post Office with a large palette of colours, sufficient for the new next values. This work was honoured by a mini-sheet of eight stamps and two labels matthews designed, sold in 2000 during the Stamp Show of London.^[2]

[edit] References and Sources

• Interview with Matthews published in The Chronicle, the journal of the Great Britain Collectors Club, October 2000. The first page is about the Machin series and the second about the Matthews' professional life.