The collection includes clothing, eagle feather bonnets, bear claw necklaces, buffalo hide tipis and tipi furnishings, shields, cradles, peace medals, moccasins, and much more. It dates from the late 1700s to pre-1890s, a period identified by Paul Dyck as the “Buffalo Culture” era.
Some speculation about the street value of the entire collection goes as high as $22 million.
Bringing the collection to the BBHC’s Plains Indian Museum ensures that these exceptional objects will be preserved and the collection will remain intact for current and future generations of interested Native Americans and others with interests in Plains Indian arts and cultures, according to the BBHC.
“We are very pleased to have signed an agreement to acquire this collection, which is truly a national treasure,” Dr. Robert Shimp, BBHC executive director, said. “We’ve been interested in it for more than 30 years, knowing that it would add significantly to our Plains Indian Museum collection. In our view, the BBHC is the best possible place for it to be protected, catalogued, and ultimately made available for visitors to see and scholars to research.”
To date, the Dyck Collection has never been available to, nor viewed by, the general public, and a timeline for any public viewing at the BBHC has not been established.
“We literally have months and months of work to do,” Shimp remarked. “Our staff needs time to do an inventory, assess conservation needs, study storage issues, and research and document individual objects, not to mention exploring the great exhibition and publication possibilities. With the myriad of objects, we have our work cut out for us for some time.”
The Paul Dyck collection was started by Dyck’s father in 1886 and was, according to family sources, “systematically collected, rather than haphazardly acquired.”
Paul Dyck, a descendent of the Flemish painter, Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), was born in Chicago in 1917. The young Dyck lived with his family in Calgary, Alberta, Canada among the Blackfeet, Crow, and Cheyenne Indians. Later, Dyck was sent to Europe to apprentice with an uncle who was a successful artist, and by age 15, he was on his own, studying at the Munich Academy. He served in World War II and then settled onto an Arizona ranch where he became an author, an illustrator, lecturer, and a painter of western subjects. Dyck died in 2006.
“The pioneer life led by my parents in Calgary, Canada at the turn of the century. . .found only disillusioned remnants and fast disappearing races of a great people,” Dyck once said. “The Indians of the West left behind a heritage of courage, beauty and philosophy which can only inspire and enrich the world. My friendship and knowledge of these people stimulated the study and collection of ethnological [materials], details which, through the years, has built an intense feeling of debt to be paid for this inspiration in art and in philosophy.”
BBHC staff members are currently preparing an exhibition plan, and anticipate it will be at least a couple of years before the collection will be available for public view.
“This collection is very simply one of a kind,” Alan K. Simpson, BBHC Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said. “We always knew we could not only preserve and interpret it, but we could also honor the memory of our dear friend Paul Dyck and his noble life’s work on behalf of Native Americans.
“Now we will begin a focused fundraising effort to complete the purchase and to underwrite the cost of bringing the collection into our museum, conserving it, preparing it for exhibit, and the many other tasks associated with the acquisition and display of a rare collection of this size and stature,” he added.
Home Page |
