Here's the latest postage stamp soon to be available from the Bluffton post office. On Aug. 12, the U.S. Postal Service will pay tribute to Winslow Homer, an American artist honoring his works with the issuance of a commemorative stamp.

The stamp, which is the ninth in the American Treasures series, features Boys in a Pasture, an 1874 oil-on-canvas painting by Homer.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) is considered one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he began a two-year apprenticeship in a lithography shop at the age of 19 and afterwards became a freelance illustrator.

In 1859, he moved to New York City, where he studied at the National Academy of Design and worked as a freelance artist for Harper's Weekly magazine. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, the magazine sent him to the front lines as an artist-correspondent.

In 1962, the U.S. Post Office Department honored Winslow Homer by issuing a 4-cent stamp featuring Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), a painting of a man and three boys sailing. In 1998, Homer's painting The Fog Warning appeared as one of 20 designs on the Four Centuries of American Art stamp pane.

Inaugurated in 2001 with the Amish Quilts stamp pane, the American Treasures series consists of annual issuances intended to showcase beautiful works of American fine art and crafts.