Collectors Item WPA Art License Plate "Mount Taylor" by Helmuth Naumer

{Part of the New Mexico Foundation Community Art Plates Series.}

Add a bit of color and class to your car with New Deal Front License Plates and at the same time help NNDPA continue its good works to preserve New Mexico’s New Deal public art.

States That Allow Decorative Front Plates: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia

These colorful, decorative plates depict New Mexico scenes created by New Mexico artists during the New Deal years from 1933-1943. The selected images are part of a vast body of work completed under various New Deal Art Programs. Our beautiful plates are durable, long lasting, and printed on metal.

If you know someone in any of the 19 above states that don’t require a front license plate, why not surprise them with this special gift from the Land of Enchantment? They also make wonderful wall art or exterior placements.

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Originally at Clayton High School “WPA Museum” This painting is now at Herzstein Museum – Clayton, NM.

In 1933, during the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed various park buildings in Frijoles Canyon in Bandelier National Monument including a visitor centre as part of the federal Works Progress Administration's employment program. Helmuth Naumer together with Pablita Velarde and E. J. Austin were commissioned by the National Park Service to create works for the newly built visitor centre exhibits.

Naumer created a series of paintings showing scenes in Bandelier National Monument and nearby pueblos. He produced fourteen pastel artworks from 1935-1936 for Bandelier National Monument, works of art which remain in the Bandelier museum collections.

In the 1940s, Naumer settled on an artists' community called San Sebastian Ranch in the Santa Fe area on land purchased by Harper Henry from the painter Fremont Ellis. Other artists included Tom Lea, Pansy Stockton. The actress Greer Garson, who had a home nearby in Pecos, bought many of Naumer's pastels.

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