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Nicholson (Grace) Papers and Addenda
mssNicholsog
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Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Grace Nicholson papers and addenda
Creator:
Nicholson, Grace, -1948
Identifier/Call Number: mssNicholsog
Physical Description:
40.88 Linear Feet
(30 boxes, 9 oversize folders, 3 volumes, 1 roll)
Date (inclusive): 1784-1975
Date (bulk): 1900-1951
Abstract: This collection contains the papers of
Grace Nicholson (1877-1948), a collector and dealer of Native American and Asian arts and
crafts in Pasadena, California, with much of the collection relating to her work in the
fields of Native American and Asian art.
Language of Material: Materials are in
English.
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at
the Huntington Library for more information.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Grace Nicholson papers and addenda, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Thyra H. Maxwell, October 1968. Gift of Raymond P. Clover, December 1975. Gift of
Anonymous, November 1998.
Grace Nicholson (1877-1948), was a collector and dealer of Native American and Asian arts
and crafts. Nicholson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 31, 1877, the
daughter of attorney Franklin Nicholson (1851-1891) and Rose Dennington Nicholson
(1855-1878). At the age of thirteen, following the death of her parents, Nicholson went to
live with paternal grandparents, William Nicholson and Mary Nicholson. After graduating from
the Philadelphia Girls' High School in 1896, Nicholson worked as a stenographer and in other
jobs in Philadelphia. In 1898, Nicholson met Mr. Carroll S. Hartman (1857-1933); she began
working for Hartman in 1900, first as a promoter for "The Battle of Manila" cyclorama, and
later in an amusement parlor on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In late 1901,
with money from a small inheritance, Nicholson moved to Pasadena, California. In early 1902,
she began purchasing Native American baskets and artifacts, opening a store at 41-43 South
Raymond Avenue in Pasadena. Within a few years, she moved her combined home, store, and
gallery to nearby 46 North Los Robles Avenue. Carroll Hartman had also relocated to Southern
California, and Nicholson employed him as a buyer for her store. Nicholson traveled
throughout Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington studying and purchasing
Native American arts and crafts and establishing relationships with the artists, whom she
often interviewed and photographed. Hartman often accompanied her on these expeditions,
taking photographs as well. Nicholson kept extensive diaries and notes on her buying trips
through Native American territory, especially of the Karok, Klamath, and Pomo Indians. Her
subjects included Native American legends, folklore, vocabulary, tribal festivals, basket
making, the art trade, and living conditions. Native American artists with whom Nicholson
established long-term business and personal connections included Pomo basket weaver Mary
Benson (1878-1930) and her husband William Benson (1862-1937), as well as Elizabeth Hickox
(1875-1947) of the Karuk tribe. Because of her ethnographic work, the American
Anthropological Association elected Nicholson to membership in 1904. She facilitated the
purchase of artifacts by museums such as the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, the Field
Museum in Chicago, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, Autry National
Center, Los Angeles, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum. In the 1910s, as the market
for Native American artifacts declined, Nicholson began expanding her work as an Asian art
dealer. In 1912, Nicholson purchased additional land next to her Los Robles Avenue property
and, in 1924, hired architects Marston, Van Pelt, and Maybury to renovate the property and
construct a Chinese-style palace. Completed in 1929, it became known as the "Grace Nicholson
Treasure House of Oriental Art." Following a 1929 trip to China and Japan, Nicholson dealt
almost exclusively in Asian arts and craft. In 1943, facing financial difficulties,
Nicholson entered into an agreement with the City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Art Institute
that transformed her Los Robles building into the Pasadena Art Institute. In 1954, the
Institute was renamed the Pasadena Art Museum; it occupied the building until 1970, when it
moved to a new Pasadena location and became the Norton Simon Museum. The Pacificulture
Foundation founded the Pacific Asia Museum in the "Treasure House" in 1971. Nicholson
continued to live at 46 North Los Robles, but she moved her shop to a smaller building at 45
South Euclid Avenue in Pasadena in 1944, and her assistants Thyra H. Maxwell and Estelle
Bynum assumed growing responsibilities for it. Nicholson died on August 31, 1948. Following
Nicholson's death, her Native American Indian art collection was left to Maxwell and Bynum,
the executors of her estate; her 12,000-item Asian art collection was auctioned by the
Curtis Gallery in November 1950 and purchased by Los Angeles businessman Edker Pope. In
1968, Maxwell donated Nicholson's papers and photographs to The Huntington Library and sold
Nicholson's collection of baskets made by the Bensons, as well as a large collection of
correspondence and myths from William Benson, to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye
Foundation, of New York City (now part of the National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.).
This collection consists of two distinct sections: the Grace Nicholson papers (2,926 items)
and addenda (1,444 items). The papers consist primarily of correspondence, while the addenda
is primarily notes. Both relate to Grace Nicholson and her work in the fields of Native
American and Asian art. There are many letters from Native Americans to Nicholson and
extensive diaries and notes that Nicholson kept on her buying trips through Native American
territory, especially of the Karok, Klamath, and Pomo Indians. Subject matter includes
Native American legends, folklore, vocabulary, tribal festivals, basket making, business in
art trade, and living conditions. There is also a considerable amount of correspondence from
China, Japan, and Korea between Nicholson and her buyers. Among the subjects covered are
Chinese art and architecture, Japanese art, Korean art, Javanese textiles, Siamese art,
Philippine art, life and social conditions in Asia, and the business of trading Asian art.
Being a well-known dealer in Native American and Asian art, Nicholson was in contact with
many artists, such as Frederick Arthur Bridgman, W. Herbert Dunton, Sadakichi Hartmann,
Elizabeth Conrad Hickox, Louise Merrill Hickox, Grace Carpenter Hudson, George Wharton
James, Lilian Miller, Hovsep T. Pushman, Joseph Henry Sharp, and Millard Sheets. Nicholson
also purchased materials for institutions such as the Field Museum of Natural History, the
Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, the Pasadena
Art Museum, and the Southwest Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.). Her intimate relationships with
Native Americans give particular insight into their lives and culture. Thus she was a key
source of information about them and historians and academics sought her out, including
Alfred Lewis Kroeber, Charles Fletcher Lummis, and Clinton Hart Merriam. Nicholson also
received letters from political figures such as Frederick Webb Hodge, Herbert Hoover, Hiram
Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Processed by Huntington Library Staff, 1970s-1990s. Finding aid was created by Mitch W. K.
Toda in 2002; in 2021, Gayle Richardson updated this finding aid.
The collection is organized in two series: the Grace Nicholson papers and the addenda and
arranged in the subseries below:
- Grace Nicholson papers (1822-1951)
- 1. Correspondence (Boxes 1-11)
- 2. Family papers (Box 12)
- 3. Building and Pasadena Art Institute papers (Box 13)
- 4. Indian notes (Boxes 14-17)
- 5. Oriental notes and miscellaneous materials (Box 18)
- 6. Letterbooks (Box 19)
- 7. Architectural drawings – 1 roll
- 8. Oversize folder: Indian Map of California
- Addenda (1784-1975)
- 1. Correspondence (Box 1)
- 2. Chinese art (Box 2)
- 3. Box 3 (Transferred to Photo Archives, Rare Books Department, Huntington Library, June 1995)
- 4. Indians of North America (Box 4)
- 5. Japanese art (Box 5)
- 6. Tibetan art (Box 6)
- 7. Family notes and travel materials (Box 7)
- 8. Grace Nicholson gallery and Chinese garden (Box 8)
- 9. Manuscript notes, drawings, and printed materials (Box 9)
- 10. Ephemera and clippings (Box 10)
- 11. Ephemera and realia (Box 11)
- 12. Indian scrapbooks – 3 volumes
- 13. Oversize folders – 8 folders
This collection was received by the Huntington Library in October 1968 as a gift from Thyra
H. Maxwell, one of Grace Nicholson's assistants and an executor of her estate. Maxwell's
donation included manuscripts, photographs, and printed materials related to Grace
Nicholson, and, initially, the collection was divided between the Manuscripts Department and
Rare Books Department. On July 7, 1973, the non-photographic materials held by the Rare
Books Department were transferred to the Manuscripts Department and became the addenda part
of this collection. Four pieces were added to the addenda, donated by Raymond P. Clover,
December 29, 1975 (acquisition number 262). The items in Addenda Box 11 (except for the
medal) were given as an anonymous gift, November 23, 1998 (acquisition number 1923). In June
1995, Box 3 of the Addenda was transferred back to the Rare Books Department and dispersed
into the existing Grace Nicholson photograph collection (photCL 56).
Former call number: mssNicholson papers and addenda.
Material cataloged separately in The Huntington Library:
Grace Nicholson photograph collection, photCL 56.
Related materials in other repositories:
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley:
Photographic negatives and prints of Calif. Indian baskets and other ethnographic items
handled by Grace Nicholson from about 1912-1925 when she was a dealer in Pasadena (Accession
2880).
Grace Nicholson's ledger of Indian baskets from about 1912-1925 in Pasadena, California
(Accession 2881).
Smithsonian Institution. National Museum of the American Indian Archives American Indian -
Heye Foundation Correspondence of Grace Nicholson (NMAI.AC.001) William Benson Letters and
Mythology.
Bernardin, Susan, et. al. Trading Gazes: Euro-American Women Photographers and Native North
Americans, 1880-1940. (New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press,
2003).
Bsumek, Erika Marie. "Exchanging Places: Virtual Tourism, Vicarious Travel, and the
Consumption of Southwestern Indian Artifact" in Rothman, Hal. The Culture of Tourism, the
Tourism of Culture: Selling the Past to the Present in the American Southwest University of
New Mexico Press, 2003), pp. 118-139.
Gasser, Maria del Carmen, ed. "My Dear Miss Nicholson" : Letters and Myths by William
Benson A Pomo Indian. (Carmel, New York: Printed Privately by the editor, 1995).
Packer, Rhonda. "Grace Nicholson: An Entrepreneur of Culture" in the Southern California
Quarterly. Vol. 76, No. 3 (Fall 1994), pp. 309-322.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Architecture, Chinese
Art -- California -- Pasadena -- Exhibitions
Art, Asian
Art, Chinese
Art, Japanese
Art, Korean
Art, Philippine
Art, Thai
Art objects -- Collectors and collecting -- California --
History
Art objects, Asian
Art objects, Chinese
Art objects, Japanese
Art objects, Korean
Art objects, Thai
Basket making -- Klamath River Valley (Or. and Calif.) --
History
Buildings -- California -- Pasadena
Gardens, Chinese
Karok baskets -- Collectors and collecting -- California
Karok Indians -- Social life and customs
Karok women -- Biography
Klamath Indians -- Social life and customs
Indian art -- California
Indian art -- Northwest, Pacific
Indian art -- Southwest, New
Indian basket makers -- California
Indian basket makers -- Northwest, Pacific
Indian basket makers -- Southwest, New
Indian baskets -- California
Indian baskets -- Northwest, Pacific
Indian baskets -- Southwest, New
Indian painting -- California
Indian painting -- Northwest, Pacific
Indian painting -- Southwest, New
Indians of North America -- California
-- Antiquities
Indians of North America -- California -- Economic
conditions
Indians of North America -- California --
Folklore
Indians of North America -- California --
Languages
Indians of North America -- California -- Antiquities -- Collectors
and collecting
Indians of North America -- California -- Rites and
ceremonies
Indians of North America -- California -- Social life and
customs
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific --
Antiquities
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Antiquities --
Collectors and collecting
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Economic
conditions
Indians of North America -- Northwest,
Pacific -- Folklore
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Languages
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Folklore
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Rites and
ceremonies
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Social life and
customs
Indians of North America -- Southwest,
New -- Antiquities
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Antiquities --
Collectors and collecting
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Economic
conditions
Indians of North America -- Southwest,
New -- Folklore
Indians of North America -- Southwest,
New -- Languages
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New -- Rites and
ceremonies
Indians of North America -- Southwest,
New -- Social life and customs
Pomo baskets -- California -- Mendocino County
Pomo Indians -- Correspondence
Pomo Indians -- Folklore
Pomo Indians -- Social life and customs
Women -- California
Women art collectors -- California -- Pasadena
Arizona -- Description and
travel
California -- Description and travel
China -- Description and
travel
China -- Social life and
customs
Japan -- Description and
travel
Japan -- Social life and
customs
Klamath Indian Reservation
(Or.)
Korea -- Description and
travel
New Mexico -- Description and travel
Oregon -- Description and
travel
Pasadena (Calif.) -- Description and travel
Pasadena (Calif.) -- Social life and customs
Washington (State) -- Description and
travel
Clippings (information artifacts) -- 19th century
Clippings (information artifacts) -- 20th century
Ephemera -- 19th century
Ephemera -- California -- Pasadena -- 20th century
Letters (correspondence) -- 19th century
Letters (correspondence) -- 20th century
Photographs -- 19th century
Photographs -- 20th century
Professional papers -- 19th century
Professional papers -- 20th century
Bridgman, Frederick Arthur,
1847-1928
Bynum, Estelle
Dunton, W. Herbert, 1878-1936
Hartman, Carroll S., 1857-1933
Hartmann, Sadakichi, 1867-1944
Hickox, Elizabeth Conrad,
1872-1947
Hickox, Louise Merrill,
1896-1962
Hodge, Frederick Webb, 1864-1956
Hoover, Herbert,
1874-1964
Hudson, Grace Carpenter,
1865-1937
James, George Wharton, 1858-1923
Johnson, Hiram,
1866-1945
Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis),
1876-1960
Maxwell, Thyra H.
Merriam, C. Hart (Clinton Hart),
1855-1942
Miller, Lilian
Pushman, Hovsep T.,
1877-1966
Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano),
1882-1945
Sharp, Joseph Henry,
1859-1953
Sheets, Millard, 1907-1989
Field Museum of Natural History
Honolulu Academy of Arts
Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and
Art
Pacific Asia Museum
Pasadena Art Museum
Southwest Museum (Los Angeles,
Calif.)