William Warder

The following video is an interview with William Warder at his home in Albuquerque, NM on December 1st, 1998.

The interview was done by Kathy Flynn, who is the Executive Director of the National New Deal Preservation Association and the New Mexico Chapter of the NNDPA.

Willie Warder was born in Mora, New Mexico in 1920 to with a mix of Comanche, Pueblo, Spanish and English forebears. As a result of this, he always referred to himself as an American. He was one of the kids whom a New Deal art project selected—at age 9—to contribute original paintings to the children's area of the Raton Library; he personally restored those same paintings many years later.

A few years after that, he was paid for his first commercial artistic endeavor with supplies, which he used immediately to cover rock faces in the nearby mountains with murals.

He established New Mexico's artist-in-residence program, and he painted murals in many places in the state, including the El Portal and Yucca Hotels in Raton, Albuquerque Public Schools and the Legends Hotel in Angel Fire. A resident for many years in Albuquerque, Warder died in 1999.