Monarchy Man (1972 STP American Tour - from the Stamp series)

Robert Fried

A poster version of one of his stamp series from the early 1970s, in commemoration of the Rolling Stones' American Tour 1972 (also known as the Stones Touring Party, or STP). While not a formal series, Fried was known for his ongoing postage stamp serigraphs in which he would create a sheet of non-legal tender stamps, including perforations and other official identification marks such as dollar or pound amounts. These he would occasionally send through the United States Postal Service until he was caught by them.

For each of his stamp series, he would also pull an edition of full-sized original prints of the same image. In keeping with the postage stamps, he first printed the image and then embossed the shape of a perforated stamp around the image, to spec. To honor the Rolling Stones' roots, here he chose to depict an English 8p (pence) stamp complete with the traditional silhouette of then-monarch Queen Elizabeth II in the lower right.