IF YOU ARE CONTEMPLATING PUBLISHING ANY WPA NATIONAL PARK IMAGES, PLEASE READ THIS FIRST:
NOTE: ALL OUR DESIGNS ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED
THE HISTORIC WPA PRINTS
Between 1938 and 1941 the WPA Federal Poster Project printed silkscreen prints for just 14 National Parks before being halted by the onset of WWII. By 1950 most of these approximately 1400 (estimated 100 copies each) poster prints had disappeared into history.
Today, 12 of the 14 original posters designs have been found with all 12 now back in the public domain. During my 25 years of searching for these, I’ve found only 43 original prints and have been lucky to own 10; all of which were recently donated back to parks, museums and the NPS (depending upon provenance and duplicates). Nine prints are still in private hands although these are duplicates. Wind Cave and Great Smoky Mountain have never been found and exist only as crude black & white negatives in the NPS archives.
The National Park Service has black and white photographs of 13 of the 14 historic prints (excluding Bandelier National Monument). These may be found at the Harper’s Ferry Archives and are also in the public domain. These are very crude and faded photos taken with a hand-held, large format, black & white film camera in 1950—it took me about 5 years to separate and redraw about 100 screens at an approximate cost of $150,000.
In the process of redrawing these screens, and to protect my work, I added four layers of encryption and took copyright on these redrawn screens. These are the historic images published on this website. They are fully copyrighted by me as derivative art, and are not in the public domain. I am challenged frequently about possession of copyright–you can find them here using keywords for each subject/park. You will not see an image, but simply a copyright number and title, etc.
In short, all images on this website (except historic photographs) are under copyright and/or trademark. Please don’t lift images off this website, or copy them in any way without permission. We do offer license (see below) for some uses of our redrawn art which is much cheaper than starting over or incurring liability for copyright infringement. Anyone who wants to take the time to reconstruct these images from the federal archives is welcome.
THE CONTEMPORARY DESIGNS ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED
After completing restoration of the fourteen historic prints, many national parks, beginning with Devils Tower, approached me to design and screen print posters that would fit in with the historic set. We have now produced approximately 45 additional contemporary images “in the style of the WPA” for most of our iconic National Parks & Monuments and hold 100% copyright on these images. These are not historic prints and are not in the public domain.
For 25 years since my first republications, I’ve seen virtually every one of our copyrighted designs applied to every type of product imaginable; tee shirts, mugs, coffee bags, neck ties, underwear, soap wrappers, beer coasters, stickers, paperweights, refer magnets, and the like. Recently a major clothing company printed over 50,000 tee shirts with our copyrighted designs; this was a very expensive mistake. I feel this not only cheapens this wonderful art, but also the artists, and our National Parks. Additionally, people are lifting the Bauhaus font footer text and slapping this on everything including “WPA socks.”
To date I’ve collected well over $50,000 in penalties for copyright violation—most of which has been donated back to our National Parks. Do not join this unique club; I prefer you donate money directly to the parks, like I do. Copyright law states that a copyright must be defended or it will be lost–so rest assured that I will defend all copyrights.
Ranger Doug’s reproductions are the only silk-screened versions of this art that you can buy. We work directly with each park* to create unique and historically accurate designs and screen print them, as did the original WPA artists. Many internet copies are digitally bootlegged and photocopied with on-demand printers. Besides violating our copyright, they are overpriced and of poor quality.
BOYCOTTING THE PARK-PLAGIARISTS
Several of our images are not sold in parks. Indeed, some parks have butchered this artwork and are selling it as “authentic” WPA creations. Most recent, Yellowstone National Park (Yellowstone Forever) has eliminated all our products and is now selling an altered image (to avoid copyright). If you want to purchase the original WPA poster art, it is only available only through this website. North Cascades, a contemporary commission, altered my design when I submitted it for approval and sold it in their bookstores. These have since been removed but the park will now not carry this design they originally commissioned. I urge everyone to read the history here on my Home Page (and purchase my book!) which explains the genesis of this unique and historic park poster series and to boycott these altered designs. If you really are as passionate about this history as I am, please write to Superintendents of each park where you cannot find our products of find substituted designs. I will even provide you with free notecards for this purpose!! There is a plethora of similar posters that mimic the WPA designs, that are also sold in our park bookstores. Some are quite good and I urge competition and artistic development. However, if you spot a phony, text or email an image to me and I’ll post it on my spoof-web-page here.
LICENSING AGREEMENTS AND OTHER POLICIES
Last, I have a flexible policy for licensing. I am approached my many who want to use this unique art for themed weddings, a child’s bedroom wall, an office divider or a boardroom panel. We normally charge the same price as the print–$45.00 for a one-time, not-for-resale use and will supply a digital copy to any reputable print shop (Kinkos, etc.) that maintains a policy to respect copyright. If use for larger murals is for a public place and mutually benefits both parties, we often license for free. The same policy is applied to any national park or monument that wants to use this artwork for fund-raising or membership purposes. As found in our Honorable Mentions page, this artwork has been licensed to several movie sets and TV serials. We are also currently working with the US State Department’s Art in Embassy Program decorating US Embassies in Islamabad Pakistan, Bratislave Slovakia, and Asmara Eritrea.
Finally, we incur some blemished prints and have a fairly large inventory which we donate to qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations, schools, hospitals and military. Please contact us for particulars if you would like a donation.
If you have any questions about what is copyrighted and what is not, please send us an email (mail@rangerdoug.com) with your questions or requests. I will be happy to clarify these issues further.
Thank you.
Ranger Doug “Ranger of the Lost Art”