Starter Collection

In May, Christie’s New York will auction Abstract Expressionist works owned by  recently-deceased writer and art collector Michael Crichton; four of the paintings, including a Stars and Stripes Flag by Crichton’s friend, Jaspar Johns, are estimated at approximately $32 million. 
Fortunately you can acquire your own collection of mid-20th Century masterpieces for a mere $4.40 at your local post office. Last week, the United States Postal Service issued a pane of commemorative stamps featuring renowned Abstract Expressionist works arranged in a pane to suggest a gallery wall. The set was designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Maryland and curated by Kessler and Jonathan Fineberg, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
The USPS collection includes:
The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) — Arshile Gorky
The Golden Wall (1961) — Hans Hofmann
Romanesque Façade (1949) — Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974)
Asheville (1948) — Willem de Kooning
La Grande Vallée 0 (1983) — Joan Mitchell 
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 (1953–1954) — Robert Motherwell
Orange and Yellow (1956) — Mark Rothko
1948–C (1948) — Clyfford Still
Achilles (1952) — Barnett Newman
Convergence (1952) — Jackson Pollock