The WPA & the Golden Age · See America / The Parks
Mystery veils the desert - National parks
Dorothy Waugh · United States National Park Service, 1934
What it is
A color lithograph poster designed by Dorothy Waugh for the United States National Park Service in 1934. Its subject is the desert, pitched under the line "Mystery veils the desert."
Why it matters
This was one of the National Park Service's early promotional posters, made to lure travelers toward the parks. Rather than sell a named peak or arch, Waugh sold a mood, betting that haze and suggestion would pull harder than a monument. It predates the better-known silkscreen travel posters of the later WPA years.
What to notice
Look at the sky: lithography let Waugh hold soft, graded transitions there that the later screenprinted series could not.
The desert as a promise you have to go see, not a picture you've already got.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Designer
- Dorothy Waugh
- Format
- Travel poster
- Poster published
- United States National Park Service, 1934
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. · Digital ID cph 3g08183; reproduction number LC-USZC4-8183
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. government program work (WPA Federal Art Project), any year. Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
