Highlights: "Recent Additions | Fresh Perspectives" (Round 1)

Sue King is an Ohio-based textile artist and printmaker. This piece was inspired by her experiences in Yellowstone National Park. To create the printing plate for this image of the bacterial mats at Grand Prismatic Spring, King collected pieces of trash from the park’s boardwalk. The bacterial mats are comprised of microorganisms known as thermophiles, which thrive in environmental extremes. Among the first life forms on Earth, they contribute to the oxygen-rich environment of the planet, and their pigmentation accounts for the brilliant coloration found in Yellowstone's geothermal features. Due to their unique heat-loving physiology, the enzymes and proteins of Yellowstone's thermophiles are highly sought by the biotech industry and were even key to developing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test used to detect COVID-19.

Although she currently lives and works in California, artist Yvonne Neth was born in Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) to Pohnpeian and Chamorro parents. She grew up in FSM and in the Northern Marianas and later moved to Hawaiʻi for college and earning her FAA commercial pilot’s license. She collaborates with professionals throughout the Pacific region and has helped to develop numerous educational products for Micronesia.

In this scene, Neth captured a reef-dwelling bluespine unicornfish (Naso unicornis). Pwulak is one in a series of nine images she proposed as FSM postage stamps to focus “on pressing conservation issues relevant to the Pacific and the greater world.” The reefs there are at the convergence of several major ocean currents which contribute to a nutrient-rich home for a diverse concentration of marine life. 

Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist Charley Harper was known for his signature “minimal realist” style. His bold, highly stylized compositions have remained timeless in their appeal and highly collectible. He designed works for several nature-based organizations—as well as for the National Park Service—and illustrated numerous books and magazines.

In 1948, Harper began a more than 30-year association as an illustrator and cover artist for Ford Times, a lifestyle publication that Ford Motor Company produced for its customers. This piece and seven others accompanied the article, “Eight Familiar Fish” in the March 1952 issue. It marked Harper’s single largest contribution to the magazine to date and was also the first time his work was offered for sale through the magazine. Subscribers could purchase the eight prints for $5.00 apiece.

Illuminated by a nearly full moon is this view that award-winning photographer David Halpern captured from the 1887 William Allen White Cabin overlooking Moraine Park within Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. The rustic home site is known for being the longtime summer retreat of White (1868–1944), a nationally recognized journalist, politician, and leader of the Progressive movement. Today, it functions as housing for participants in the park’s artist-in-residence (AiR) program; Halpern has stayed here on four separate residencies since 1984. 

Halpern has ultimately served 13 times as a National Park Service artist in residence and has drawn upon those experiences to establish two AiR programs at park sites in his adopted home state of New Mexico. His career includes 17 years in advertising and 27 years as a commercial photographer. A much-sought instructor and prolific author, Halpern is a life member of the American Society of Media Photographers and an inductee in the Tulsa Historical Society’s Hall of Fame.