Presented By: Gifts of Art
Gifts of Art presents Native Alaskan Baskets & Carvings with Photographs from the Gold Rush
From the collection of Virginia Simson Nelson

These historic baskets by unknown Yup'ik Eskimo and Athabascan Indian artists in Alaska date to approximately 1910 and are from the collection of Virginia Simson Nelson, Professor Emerita of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, U-M Medical School. Nelson’s paternal grandparents, Simon and Frances Horwitz Simson, as well as Simon’s brothers Abraham and Ben, owned and operated the Surprise General Store in Nome, Alaska from 1905-1917. Some of the traded goods from the American Indian tribes of the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta comprise this collection. With the baskets are historic photographs, also from unknown photographers, of Yup'ik Eskimo and Athabascan Indians from that time.