Adee Dodge

Adee Dodge (1911 – 1992) was an American painter and artist. 

Early life and education

Adee Dodge was born Adolph Bitanny Dodge in 1911 at Wheatfield, Arizona in the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. He came from an influential family. His grandfather, Henry Chee Dodge—the last head chief of the Navajo Nation, and their first elected Tribal Chairman.

Dodge studied at Bacone Junior College, Muskogee, Oklahoma, where his teachers gave him the nickname "Adee," for A.D. (his initials.) He then obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Mexico in 1935. After serving a four-year enlistment as a Navajo Code Talker in the National Guard, he studied Comparative Linguistics and Anthropology at Columbia University in New York, graduating with a Master of Arts degree. 

Career

Dodge began to paint actively in 1954, primarily in casein. Right around that time, he was commissioned to paint a mural at the Arizona State University Administration Building.

A self-taught painter, Dodge focused his work on preserving the symbols and stories of the Navajo Religion. His trademark was the Navajo hair-roll, which is a symbol of the Navajo people. He would also include birds, the bluebird, which symbolizes the Seagoing people of the East and the flying swallow, a symbol of the Swallow people of the West. He would sign his art with his nickname Adee. 

His work has been exhibited at the Arizona State Museum, the Heard Museum, the Intertribal Indian Ceremonial, and the Peabody Museum (1911-1992), and has also been featured in Arizona Highways and at the Smithsonian. 

Personal life

Dodge was married to his wife Maria Delubis, also an artist who attended the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. 

Death

Dodge died in 1992 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the age of 81.