Adee Dodge: Navajo Artist, Intellectual, and Individualist

Adee Dodge: Navajo Artist, Intellectual, and Individualist chronicles the life of Navajo artist and intellectual Adee Dodge (1912–92). Born on the Navajo Reservation near Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, Dodge studied anthropological linguistics at Columbia University, taught Navajo literacy at Indian Bureau boarding schools on his reservation, rose from private first class to captain in the army during World War II, and founded Adee Dodge Enterprises, Inc., the first uranium prospecting and mining firm owned by a Navajo. At age forty, by then living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dodge began to paint allegorical pictures grounded in Navajo wisdom traditions and aesthetics. By 1960 he was an acclaimed Southwest Native watercolorist based in Arizona’s Phoenix metro area. His devotion to interpreting the Navajo worldview in modernist form earned him praise as the best of the Navajo painters of his day. Upon his death, Dodge left behind a rich record of his intellectual history that has since been conserved at major museums and archives.Written from a postcolonial perspective, this biography conveys Dodge’s assessment of the contributions the Navajo Nation might yet make to the American experiment, if only Americans would honor their promise to treat tribal peoples with dignity and respect.

About the Author

Nancy Mattina taught research and nonfiction writing at Prescott College until her retirement in 2016. She is the author of Uncommon Anthropologist: Gladys Reichard and Western Native American Culture.