That John Maynard Keynes was an art collector/investor is well-known. Economics in the Rear-view mirror has earlier posted about the Columbia economic historian Vladimir Simkhovich, one of Milton Friedman’s professors, who turned out to be quite the collector himself. My old professor of comparative economic systems, John Michael Montias of Yale, later became a well-renowned authority on Vermeer as well as the art market in Amsterdam in the 17th century.
This post is another in the series “Get to know a Ph.D. economist”. Norton Dodge was one of the legion of young scholars who launched their research careers at the Harvard Russian Research Center. Somehow Dodge went from being a mild-mannered economist who wrote a doctoral dissertation on labor productivity in the Soviet tractor industry (don’t try that at home unless you are a professional) to the passionate collector of Soviet nonconformist art. Apparently Dodge was able to fly under the radar long enough to establish a network to help satisfy his urge to collect, often discretely sometimes openly, and to assemble an enormous collection. According to John McPhee’s 1994 book (see below), Norton Dodge spent $3 million dollars of his personal fortune buying Soviet underground art. Dodge inherited a bundle from his father, Homer Levi Dodge, physicist who also became dean of the graduate school at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Homer Dodge was an early Warren Buffett investor.
In 1995 the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art was donated to Rutgers University.
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Norton Townshend Dodge
1927 June 15. Born in Oklahoma City.
Began his studies at Deep Springs College.
1948. Graduated from Cornell University.
1951. A.M. in Russian studies at Harvard
1955. First trip to USSR. Dissertation research.
1960. Harvard economics Ph.D. Thesis: Trends in Labor Productivity in the Soviet Tractor Industry; a Case Study in Industrial Development.
1962. Second visit to Soviet Union. Meets dissident artists.
1966. Women in the Soviet Economy: Their Role in Economic, Scientific, and Technical Development(Johns Hopkins University Press).
1976. Following death of artist Evgeny Rukhin under suspicious circumstances, Dodge ceased his travel to the Soviet Union, relying on his personal network
1980. Retired from University of Maryland, College Park, begins teaching at St. Mary’s College, Maryland.
1989. Retired from St. Mary’s College, Maryland.
1995. Opening of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art to Rutgers University [17,000 items donated valued at $34 Million] (permanent display at Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum)
From Gulag to Glasnost: Nonconformist Art in the Soviet Union, edited with Alla Rosenfield.
2011 November 5. Died in Washington, D.C.
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For more, especially about Dodge’s art collecting
John McPhee. The Ransom of Russian Art (1994).
Andrew Solomon. “Produced in the Soviet Dark, Collected by a Secret Admirer”. New York Time, October 15, 1995.
Emily Langer, Norton T. Dodge, U-Md. Economics professor and Soviet art collector, dies at 84. Washington Post, November 10, 2011.
Margalit Fox, “Norton Dodge Dies at 84; Stored Soviet Dissident Art. New York Times, November 11, 2011.
Image Source: US Post News, Deaths November 2011.