BIOGRAPHY: Patricia Vouez

Patricia Vouez was born in Uccle, Belgium, in 1952. She enjoyed her education in Brussels, where she studied art, humanities and illustration. After her graduation, Vouez worked for a while in the printing office of the National Library.

In 1981, Vouez started working for the Belgian National bank, as a banknote designer and engraver. She would receive her graphic training from Henri Decuyper and CharlesLeclercqz. These two master engravers had also been stamp engravers, which made the step for Vouez to do stamps as well a very small one. And so, from 1988, Vouez would also engrave postage stamps, in a freelance capacity. Her first stamp was part of the 1988 Belgian set depicting printing presses. Vouez engraved an illustration of a wooden press dating from 1600.

Vouez followed this up with a number of values of the annual Tourist Publicity series. These were isued between 1989 and 1993. The two values from the 1993 set would be her last one before the Belgian Post decided to no longer work with freelance engravers and open up a vacancy for one permanent in-house engraver. Seeing that Vouez already had her job at the National Bank, she did not apply for this position which in the end went to Guillaume Broux.

After this, Vouez did engrave another stamp, which was her last one; the 1998 Stamp Day issue for Belgium, marking the second death anniversary of Edmond Struyf, the founder of Pro-Post, the organisation promoting philately.

You will find Patricia Vouez's database HERE.