The new collection issued by the UK's Royal Mail features Lye's animation film A Colour Box as one of 10 stamps in a series that celebrates ''Great British Films''.
Six of the stamps show scenes from movies made after World War 2, including David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire (1981).
A sheet of four stamps commemorates documentaries produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit in the 1930s.
The GPO Film Unit was established in 1933 to produce documentary films, of which Lye's A Colour Box was one, about postal and telephone services.
Lye made A Colour Box in London in 1935.
It earned a special place in film history as the first ''direct film'', made without a camera by painting images directly on celluloid.
Lye's film was screened in cinemas throughout Britain and was seen, according to British film historian David Curtis, ''by a larger public than any experimental film before it and most since''.
A Colour Box went on to win a Medal of Honour at the 1935 International Cinema Festival in Brussels.
When presented at the Venice Film Festival the following year, the screening had to be stopped because of a demonstration by fascists and Nazis who condemned the film as ''degenerate art'' because of its modern style.
The film has been restored to its original bright colours and issued on DVD by the British Film Institute. which describes it as ''brilliantly inventive and technically accomplished''.
Len Lye biography author Roger Horrocks says: ''Lye's film looks as original and colourful today as it did in 1935 - a standout even among those nine other famous films''.
The film can be viewed at www.govettbrewster.com/Len-Lye/Work/Film.
