The Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series Celebrates 100 Years of National Parks

On any given day in July a mini-van is driving down US Highway 212, south from Montana into Wyoming. The mini-van, we could guess, is occupied thusly — father, mother, two children. Maybe a dog or grandmother. Ice chest. Tent. Sleeping bags. The family will take the road until they enter Yellowstone National Park. This will be repeated by thousands of other vehicles all over the country — the summer road trip.

In the early 1990s my own family took a 1987 Dodge Ram on the road each summer, two to three weeks at a time. Camping at National Parks and smaller monuments and sites along the way. This memory immediately rushed back when I saw the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series, a project started by JP Boneyard of The National Poster Retrospecticus.

The Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series releases screenprinted posters for each National Park to inspire visits to our natural wonders. Boneyard is taking a unique approach in the world of posters by releasing each screenprint as an 18″ x 24″ open edition, ensuring all park enthusiasts will have access to the posters as well as limited edition versions to satisfy the print collector set.

2016 marks the centennial of then president Woodrow Wilson signing the 1916 National Park Service Organic Act that created the National Park Service, the agency entrusted with conserving designated expanses of country, making the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series a timely project.