Includes a Foreword by Navajo Nation Museum Director Geoffrey I. Brown. Whether viwed as history or art, this book provides a distinct and singluar opportunity. Features over 90 beautiful duotone photopgraphs. More than fifty years ago, a young student of biochemistry and physics took his bulky, twin-lens reflex camera on a journey through the Dinetah, the land of the Navajo people. He entered with gifts - quartz crystals, abalone shells, and two bags of oranges - and he left with an invaluable photographic record of a culture. With a historical perspective provided in a Foreword by Navajo Nation Museum Director Geoffrey I. Brown and an exhaustive introduction by the author/photographer himself, Navajo Nation 1950 is as informative as it is visually stunning. The scenes and events described in the photographer's essay are more than just stories; in fact, they are more important now than ever, in that Wittenberg is the only non-native photographer who had access to the Navajo Nation people and lands during the years 1950-1952. Today, access has been limited even further by The People, so some of the landscapes seen here can only be seen through Wittenberg's lens. Now that half a century has passed, the traditions of the Dine have evolved, so that extensive anecdotal and photographic records like this one become invaluable historic documents, as well as a feast for the eyes.

Between 1950-1953 Jonathan Wittenberg travelled throughout the Dinetah region of the Native American Navajo tribe, a region that encompasses the intersection of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. With his twin-lens reflex camera, Wittenberg captured the Navajos, and was the only non-native to be able to access them between the years of 1950-1953 - a feat he achieved by gifting the tribe with quartz crystals, abalone shells, and two bags of oranges, on his first visit. The photos he brought back are a rare insight into the Navajos, examining their culture and traditional practices. Jocks & Nerds Magazine, 2/20/15 The photographs presented in Navajo Nation 1950 celebrate the drama and splendor of the traditional Navajo people and of the dramatic desert on which they endure. -- Jonathan B. Wittenberg PMc Magazine, Spring 2015 This is a book that captures and preserves the traditional life and culture of the Navajo Indians. Between 1950 and 1953, the author traveled throughout the Arizona-New Mexico region known as the Navajo Reservation. The land is harsh and yet stunningly beautiful. The people, as seen through the lens of his camera, hold the beauty and the hardship of the land in their faces. It is unusual and very rare even today that an outsider is allowed to view many of their traditional rituals. They are a private people. -- Noella Ballenger Apogee Photo Magazine Wittenberg fell in love with the high desert, and decided to go back, taking his bulky, twin-lens reflex camera with him. The result of his travels is collected in Navajo Nation 1950: Traditional Life in Photographs (Glitterati Incorporated). Wittenberg's photographs include stark desert landscapes on the reservation, juxtaposed with regal portraits of weavers, dancers, and medicine men. -- Miss Rosen Crave Online, August 14, 2015

Jonathan B. Wittenberg is a Professor Emeritus of Physiology and Biophysics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his PhD from Columbia University. His photographs from the era in which he lived with the Navajo people can be found in the permanent collection of the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona and the Heard Museum, in Phoenix, Arizona. He and his wife live in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.