Helen, Van Kirke Nelson's collection spans decades
<p><strong>This Blackfoot</strong> beaded and painted antelope hide shirt, appraised at between $125,000 and $175,000, is part of an auction of rare American Indian artifacts owned by Helen and the late Dr. Van Kirke Nelson of Kalispell. (Photos courtesy of Skinner)</p>
A collection of rare American Indian artifacts owned by Helen and the late Dr. Van Kirke Nelson of Kalispell will be sold at auction Feb. 6 in Boston by internationally acclaimed auction house Skinner.
The artifacts, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars, are wide-ranging, including clothing, moccasins, adornments, pouches, weapons, horse regalia and baby cradles.
The most valuable piece in the upcoming auction is a beaded and painted antelope hide shirt appraised at between $125,000 and $175,000.
“You’re always surprised at the value,” Helen Nelson told the Daily Inter Lake on Friday. “Kirke collected when no one else did. He loved collecting. He had the joy of collecting all his life.”
Van Kirke was a pioneer of the ALERT air ambulance service based at Kalispell Regional Medical Center and a longtime obstetrics-gynecologist who delivered about 7,500 babies during his medical career in Kalispell.
He died April 18, 2015, at age 83.
He was a University of Southern California student working as a camp counselor on the shores of Flathead Lake when he first began collecting items he referred to as “keen things.” Van Kirke and Helen spent many decades collecting both Western art and artifacts.
They scoured secondhand stores, purchased items from other collectors and on occasion found artifacts in other countries.
They generously opened their home for school field trips, welcoming fourth-graders each year to view the American Indian artifacts and then enjoy chocolate-chip cookies made by Helen.
“The school kids saw the collection by the hundreds,” she recalled. “We had the fourth-graders here for 44 years.”
Van Kirke loved the stories attached to the various artifacts and enjoyed regaling both friends and strangers with insight about the diverse cultures and histories represented by the art and artifacts they collected.
Helen recalled how just before her husband died, someone brought two small artifacts to their home, and he paid $50 apiece for them.
“He liked to make people feel good,” she said. “The artifacts were show and tell.”
While the Nelsons emphasized material from the Blackfeet and Crow tribes, Skinner auction officials note the collection encompasses fine pieces from a broad cross-section of Plains and Plateau American Indian culture.
“In each piece, they saw beauty and functionality combined to articulate the culture and history of a particular tribe; its deep respect of the natural and animal worlds articulated in the patterns and materials; its interactions with traders and other tribes, as well as its particular customs and spiritual beliefs,” Skinner Vice President of Marketing Emerson Tuttle said in a press release about the collection.
Among the extraordinary pieces up for auction are an unusual pictographic Central Plains beaded hide man’s shirt appraised at $30,000 to $40,000 and a Lakota pictorial beaded hide vest valued at between $15,000 to $20,000.
A rare Lakota red trade cloth cradle is listed at $3,000 to $4,000, and a Crow beaded buffalo-hide rifle scabbard previously in the John S. MacKay Collection is valued at upwards of $20,000.
A rare Plains Indian child’s saddle is expected to fetch $4,000 to $6,000.
Helen said she worked with Douglas Diehl, director of the American Indian and ethnograph art department at the Skinner auction house, in selecting items for auction. Diehl and Van Kirke became friends through the years. Skinner will auction 194 pieces of the Nelsons’ collection.
A second auction featuring American Indian artifacts is planned later this spring, she said.
Helen said she retained various pieces of the collection and has incorporated them into her home decor, rather than having them in the dedicated room that once enthralled so many Flathead fourth-graders and other art admirers through the years.
Previews for the auction are free and open to the public in Boston on Feb. 4, 5 and 6 prior to the auction. The illustrated catalog for Sale 2879B is available from the subscriptions department at 508-970-3240.
The Skinner website at www.skinnerinc.com enables users to view all lots in the auction, leave bids, order catalogs and bid live in real time through SkinnerLive!
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.