FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter answers questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity building site, in Memphis, Tenn., on Nov. 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter answers questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity building site, in Memphis, Tenn., on Nov. 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — The late President Jimmy Carter will be honored with a commemorative Forever stamp on what would have been his 101st birthday.
The U.S. Postal Service will release the stamp for purchase on Oct. 1 in Atlanta.
The postage features a 1982 portrait of the nation’s 39th president by painter Herbert E. Abrams. The stamp art was unveiled Saturday at the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in Plains.
Carter, the longest-lived U.S. president, .
“The stamp program celebrates the best in American culture, places and people, and it is difficult to consider a more fitting honoree than former President Jimmy Carter," Peter Pastre, the Postal Service’s government relations and public policy vice president, said in a statement.
The oil-on-linen painting that is the basis for the stamp was a life study Abrams painted of Carter while he sat for the artist. It was used in preparation for Carter's official White House portrait that Abrams also painted. Abrams, who spent part of his life in Connecticut, kept his commission secret as he traveled three times to Georgia to meet with Carter, according to Connecticut Humanities.
Ethel Kessler, an art director for USPS, designed the stamp.
