A photograph of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by a former Bermuda policeman has been selected as the base for a stamp intended to honour the late US Supreme Court judge.

The US Postal Service announced that Justice Ginsburg, who died in 2020 at the age of 87, would be recognised with a Forever stamp to be released sometime next year.

The image to be used for the stamp is an oil painting based on a photograph by Philip Bermingham, a celebrated photographer in Washington DC, who developed his passion for photography while he worked with the Bermuda Police Service.

Mr Bermingham described the veteran judge as a “remarkable person” who was extremely gifted in her words and writings.

He told The Royal Gazette: “Mrs Justice Ginsburg and I lived in the Watergate apartment building in Washington DC.

“We were both huge fans of the Washington National Opera and we would frequently see each other in the building and at the nearby Kennedy Centre, where I frequently photographed the opera singers.

“She appeared in a cameo role in the opera Die Fledermaus and I first photographed her there.”

Mr Bermingham said that in 2017 they organised a photo session in her chambers at the US Supreme Court.

The results were used for the cover of her biography and Mr Bermingham’s own book of photographs, Portraiture: Philip Bermingham On the Job.

Mr Bermingham said: “My book designer Antonio Alcala also did design work for the United States Postal Service and asked if he could show the image to their designers.

“I subsequently entered into an arrangement for them to use it as a Forever stamp.”

Mrs Justice Ginsburg was known before her 1993 appointment to the Supreme Court as an advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union and the designer of a legal strategy to bring cases to the courts to safeguard gender equality.

The US Post Office, making the announcement of the Forever stamp, described the judge as a “respected jurist whose important majority opinions advancing equality and strong dissents on socially controversial rulings made her a passionate proponent of equal justice”.

Forever stamps, introduced by the US Postal Service in 2007, can be used to mail a one-ounce letter regardless of when the stamps are purchased or used and no matter how prices may change in the future.