Blazing A Trail: Dorothy Waugh’s National Parks Posters

The 17 travel posters Dorothy Waugh created for the National Park Service between 1934 and 1936 are significant cultural records of the Great Depression and mark a turning point in American graphic design. Although Waugh began her work for the NPS in 1933 as a landscape architect, she was also a highly trained artist. She advocated for the bureau to produce its own poster campaign, separate from those of the railroads and with its own style and messaging.

The resulting poster series was the first time the government had assigned such an ambitious project to a single designer, let alone a female modernist. Until now, however, there has been little research on them or on their originator. This exhibition and its accompanying book, based on private and government documents, is the first dedicated to the entire campaign, which heralded an outpouring of government posters for the rest of the 20th century.

Mark Resnick is an authority on the history of American graphic design, a field in which he curates, publishes, and lectures. He has also served as an art museum director, as chief business and legal executive at major film companies, and on various arts-related boards. He is the founder of Resnick Arts and Culture Consulting, which advises cultural institutions and their leaders on a wide range of matters and counsels major collectors on the sale or donation of their collections.