Visual Materials

1.1 Photograph Albums

Description

This subseries contains nine photograph albums with many views of Native Americans; baskets and basket collections; Grace Nicholson's store and home in Pasadena, California; and images of Nicholson and others.

Albums A-F consist of six albums with approximately 500 photos each, mostly documenting Grace Nicholson's six basket-collecting trips between 1902 and 1912 to Native American communities of the Northwest Coast, California, and Southwest. The photographs are black-and-white prints, mostly 3 x 4 inches, pasted in albums measuring 11 1/4 x 15 inches, with many captions in Nicholson's handwriting.

Albums G-I are smaller volumes and consist of a volume of 25 commercial photographs of Indians (Album G); a volume with 25 photographs of Grace Nicholson's first collecting trip to Ukiah and Northern California in 1903 (Album H); and a volume of 29 photographs of various Native Americans made by an unknown compiler and later acquired by Grace Nicholson (Album I).

Type

Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)

Date

ca. 1873-1920

Call number

photCL 56

Album (disbound) of photographs of paintings, art objects and galleries, ca. 1928-1930

Visual Materials

This collection contains approximately 10,000 photographs, negatives and ephemera created or compiled by Grace Nicholson (1877-1948), a collector and dealer of Native American and Asian arts and crafts in Pasadena, California. The bulk of the collection dates from 1903 to the 1920s and includes photograph albums and individual photographs with views of Native Americans of the Northwest Coast, California, and the Southwest of North America; pictures documenting Nicholson's basket collecting trips primarily between 1902 and 1912; images of Nicholson's stores and residences in Pasadena, including the building of the "Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art" in the mid-1920s; and personal photographs of Nicholson, her family, friends, and associates. Nicholson's personal snapshots and photograph albums provide a valuable resource for studying Native American communities, particularly in Northern California, in the early 20th century. Many of the photographs depict daily life and include images of homes, community events, dances and rituals, families and children, and portraits. Most of these photographs were taken by Grace Nicholson or her assistant, Mr. Carroll S. Hartman, and are often accompanied by Nicholson's handwritten identifications.

photCL 56

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