Stamps honor isle artist Clarence Lee

The latest Lunar New Year stamp from the U.S. Postal Service pays homage to the late Hawaii graphic designer Clarence Lee, who designed the first series of Lunar New Year stamps released in 1992.

Artist Kam Mak created the new Year of the Monkey stamp, which depicts two bright red-orange peonies — symbols of wealth and honor — and incorporates two elements from the previous series, including Lee’s paper-cut design of a monkey. The other is the Chinese character for “monkey” drawn in calligraphy by Lau Bun.

Lee, who died in 2015, was a pioneer in the Hawaii design industry who mentored and inspired many other designers, according to his daughter, Cathy Lee Chong. He also designed the U.S. stamp for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“I’m very happy to see his work continue,” said Chong. “The greatest tribute to an artist is to have their work appreciated and revived.”

Getting the postal service to create a Lunar New Year stamp series wasn’t easy. The Organization of Chinese Americans, now known as OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, lobbied the agency to create the original series after Georgia chapter member Jean Chen, a children’s librarian, came across a book about the history of the Transcontinental Railroad. It had a photo that showed only Caucasian workers celebrating the completion of the railroad in 1869. This obvious slight to the numerous Chinese laborers involved in the massive undertaking incensed Chen, who felt that Asians’ contributions to the country had long been ignored, according to OCA.

Chen moved the OCA to lead the way in urging the postal service to issue the first stamp honoring the contributions of Chinese-Americans, and the agency asked Lee to design it.

After Lee’s popular Lunar New Year stamp series ended in 2004, OCA lobbied again to have the series renewed. In 2008 the postal service commissioned Mak to design the second set. All of the stamps in the second series include Lee’s paper-cut designs in the upper left corner.

“I’m thrilled I was given the opportunity to tell a story through my paintings,” said Mak, 54, who was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New York’s Chinatown. “Clarence Lee’s animal designs help enhance the series. He created an incredible following — not just Chinese or Asian people who celebrate the Lunar New Year, but many people outside of the culture fell in love with the whole series of stamps.”

In a 2008 interview Lee said the stamps gave him a chance to honor his parents. Lee’s mother was a Chinese-American from Hawaii; his father emigrated from China and worked hard to support his wife and five children as a butcher in Honolulu’s Chinatown.

“I remember my father getting butcher paper, that was a pink, waxy butcher paper, and he would bring it home for me, sheets and sheets of it. And I would just sit on the floor and just start drawing,” said Lee, who credits his parents for nurturing his passion for art as a child.

For Mak, creating the stamps honors “all those Chinese-Americans in the past and in the present who continue to contribute to this country. We helped build this country. It’s acknowledging all those contributions.”