About the Artist

Baje Whitethorne, Sr. was born in 1951 at his family’s hogan near Shonto, on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. He attended Tuba City High School, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and Grand Canyon College in Phoenix, but received little formal art training.

He began selling his artwork in Flagstaff, but when a gallery owner left town without returning or paying for Whitethorne’s work, he became disillusioned and set his sights on a new career. Whitethorne apprenticed as a boilermaker, and supported himself and his family in this field of work for fifteen years, before turning his full attention to painting. His watercolors and acrylics record landscapes and Navajo people in brilliant colors. He also depicts them in bronze.

The work of Baje Whitethorne, Sr. has been exhibited at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Santa Fe Indian Market, just to name a few. His work has been featured in Southwest Art magazine and The Santa Fe New Mexican. He currently lives and paints in Flagstaff, Arizona.