Nicholson, Grace, 1877-1948

Grace Nicholson was born in Philadelphia on December 31, 1877. She lost both parents at a young age. Nicholson studied secretarial training and received a diploma from the Girls’ High School. After working for a collection agency for five months, she moved to Atlantic City and managed a boardwalk amusement concession owned by C. S. Hartman, a family friend.

In 1901 Nicholson's grandparents died and she used her inheritance to move to Los Angeles. She opened a shop in Pasadena to offer typewriting services. Soon, however, she began to buy and sell Indian baskets and converted her shop into a store and studio named "Old Curio Shop." C. S. Hartman assisted in her business and she hired him to be a buyer. As she began to travel beyond southern California to obtain objects she took photographs and detailed ethnographic notes. Communities who conducted business with Nicholson include the Hupa, Yurok, Pomo, Karuk (Karok), Tolowa, Yokayo Pomo, Achomawi (Pit River), Atsugewi (Hat Creek), Hopi Pueblo, Kumeyaay (Digueno), Mojave (Mohave), Paiute, Taos Pueblo, Wintu, Acoma Pueblo, Maidu, Chuk-chansi Yokuts, and Yokuts.

The market for Indian objects started to diminish by 1916 and Nicholson turned the focus of her business toward China and Japan. During her career, she supplied between twenty and forty thousand objects to public and private collections. Museums that obtained collections from her include the Smithsonian Institution, Field Museum in Chicago and the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. As her business began to change Nicholson sold part of her collection to the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. These objects were later transferred to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. In 2010 the museum repatriated 219 ceremonial items from this collection to the Yurok.

Nicholson died in 1948 and left her gallery to the city of Pasadena (now the Pacific Asia Museum).