Estate of Donald Evans

The remarkable American miniature stamp watercolorist Donald Evans was a nomadic traveloguer of a wholly fictional yet unquestionably lush global community. Evan’s imaginative stamp paintings began in his youth when he was a novice stamp collector. As an adult world traveller he continued to innovate beautifully executed whimsical stamps.

Given the miniature nature of his studio practice, international travel was simultaneously convenient and also a necessary inspiration. Evans crafted forty-two fictional countries with their own native populations, customs and products in the guise of the mass-produced postage stamps of modern countries. Just like a passionate collector’s pursuit of a complete collection of stamps, Evans was driven to create a stamp compendium of his own fabulist travels, which he ultimately assembled in his own Catalogue of the World.

Donald Evans was born in 1945 in Morristown, New Jersey. He graduated from Cornell University and became an architectural designer for Richard Meier and Associates in New York. Evans traveled extensively from 1971 to 1977, most often to Japan and Europe.  He easily funded his studio practice by lodging with friends or by renting small flats. He worked until his untimely death by fire in his Amsterdam apartment in 1977. Donald Evans enjoyed considerable success and recognition for his work while alive, and posthumously with solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, Japan, London, Paris, New York and Washington D.C. He has a cult following amongst sophisticated artists and collectors.