Work by folk artist Maud Lewis featured in this year’s holiday season stamps

OTTAWA — Canada Post is using three colourful and festive scenes painted by Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis for its holiday season stamps this year.

The agency announced the choice of the works by the late artist today in a news release.

The paintings used for the new stamps are from seasonal works held in the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

They are “Winter Sleigh Ride,” “Team of Oxen in Winter,” and “Family and Sled.” 

Lewis’s lively depictions of rural life gained her national and international recognition towards the end of her life and in the decades after her death in 1970.

Her works largely feature sights she would have seen around her tiny home in Marshalltown, near Digby, N.S.

Her paintings, which once sold for as little as two dollars, have become prized in recent years, in part as a result of the 2016 biopic “Maudie,” which rekindled interest in her story.

Though the works are joyful, Lewis’s life was marked by poverty, health issues and poor treatment from her loved ones.

Born in 1903, she lived most of her life in pain from rheumatoid arthritis, which left her hands gnarled and limited her ability to paint.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2020.

The Canadian Press