Sylvia Goaman (1924-2006), the daughter of JB Priestley, studied textile design in London and Paris. She worked in professional partnership with her husband Michael Goaman (1921-2009); together they achieved worldwide renown, notably for their stamps. From 1950 to 1980 they produced stamps for more than forty countries that are regarded as among the most beautiful and original of the period. One critic called them "models of functional and aesthetic efficiency", and her Daily Telegraph obituary praised "the precise detail, purity of design, handling of colour and harmony of pictorial elements with essential postage details" which were all typical of her work. She had an outstanding gift for botanical stamp design, seen here in her series to mark the International Botanical Congress in 1964.