Pierre Gandon

Pierre Gandon was a French illustrator and engraver of postage stamps. He was born January 20 1899 in L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne) and died July 23 1990.

Youth

His father Gustave Gandon was himself an engraver at the Institut de gravure of Paris and designed stamps for some countries and only one for France (the cathedral of Strasbourg in 1939).

Pierre Gandon studied in Paris at the École Estienne, then at the École des Beaux-Arts. He won his first of many prizes in 1921 : the Prix de Rome.

Stamp designer

Gandon answered an advertisement in a paper and finally obtained the right to design "Femme indigène", his first postage stamp series issued 1941 in the French colony of Dahomey.

The same year was issued his first stamp for France : the coat of arms of Reims.

Four times he received the Grand Prix de l'Art philatélique during his career that includes three French definitive stamps series :
* Marianne de Gandon series issued at the end of the Second World War,
* Sabine de Gandon series inspired by Jacques-Louis David's "The Intervention of the Sabine Women", issued during the 1970s,
* and Liberté de Gandon series inspired by Eugène Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People". He was 82 years old when he engraved this stamp.

His last stamp was issued for the "Journée du timbre 1983".