Donations to Public Institutions
Four decades of gifts to museums, libraries, and research institutions
A Principle of Giving
Across more than forty years of collecting, Gary Hendershott has placed important material with public institutions so that scholars, curators, and future generations can study what he was fortunate enough to gather.
The donations described below are absolute and irrevocable. They span four institutions across two states — an Amazonian art collection and a 700-volume scholarly library at Tulane University; decades of Louisiana and Civil War material at The Historic New Orleans Collection; and an Arkansas and early-American collection at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock.
Each gift was made with the same wish: that the material serve its institution’s educational purposes, and that the cultures, artists, and historical figures represented in it remain part of the public record.
The Amazon Tribal Art Collection
Donated December 2014 — placed with the Middle America Research Institute (M.A.R.I.) and the Latin American Library in New Orleans.
The collection had been assembled by Daniel F. McLister across multiple expeditions to South America in the 1970s. McLister gathered these objects directly from the ethnic peoples of the Amazon basin — many of them from tribes that were then little known, and some of which no longer exist as peoples. Gary acquired the collection before the year 2000 and held it for years before finding the right institutional home.
Tulane’s Director of Gift Planning Administration wrote at the time of donation: “We are honored that you have chosen to entrust your collection to M.A.R.I. and the Latin American Library — it will be in good hands. Your gift is an important addition to their collections.”
The physical artifacts were placed with M.A.R.I.; the shaman pictographic manuscripts were placed with the Latin American Library.
Brazilian Collection
- Kaapor tribe woman’s songbird feather necklace and matching hummingbird earrings
- Rare set of Urubu-Kaapor men’s and women’s ceremonial name-giving necklaces
- Rembe-Pipo feather lambert worn during name-giving ceremonies
- Two Rickbatsa tribal ritual dance spears
- Five Taparape tribe large ‘Upe’ enemy warrior masks — Cara Grande — crafted of blue, yellow, and scarlet macaw breast feathers with mother-of-pearl eyes
- Large Ticuana bark painting, circa 1940s — 5×5 feet, from the collection of Benjamin Constant; one of three gifted to him by the tribe, painted in vegetable dyes for girls’ puberty ceremonies
- Waura tribal lady’s beaded festival skirt with early 20th-century trade beads
- Waura chieftain’s crown of toucan breast feathers and oropendola tail feathers, worn during the Javari and Kuarap ceremonies
Venezuelan Collection
- Makiritari beaded skirt owned by upper Orinoco River collector Vincente Barleta
- Kayapo-Xikrin hoop headdress — over four feet tall with bright blue feathers; extremely rare
- Kayapo-Xikrin chieftain’s ceremonial crown with yellow and red feathers
- Javari early blow gun (five feet) with original dart bag, collected from Venezuelan head hunters; formerly displayed at a Colorado monastery
- Matis tribe long blow gun (seven feet, circa 1930s) with dart bag; the Matis had no outside contact until the 1970s
- Two Marubo spears and three sets of Matis bow and arrows
- Javari-Waura headdress with elaborate feather projections from a central diadem
- Urubu-Kaapor ‘Akangatar’ ceremonial headdress with macaw feathers and cotton danglers
- Kayapo-Xikrin cylindrical cane crown with oropendola feathers
- Karaja tribe urucu cuffs with red feather danglers; Fish Dance costume mask; Kayapo-Txukahamae oropendola headdress with zigzag cane frame
French Guiana & Suriname
- Waiwai tribe rare lady’s beaded festival skirt with blue Amazon parrot wing feathers and early 20th-century trade beads (French Guiana)
- Waiwai tribe chieftain’s woven dance bonnet with Harpy eagle wing feathers and water bird danglers — a very rare piece (French Guiana)
- Two Wayana tribe lady’s loin coverings for day-to-day use, with feather and beaded panels; accompanied by a child’s loin covering (Suriname)
Shaman Pictographic Manuscripts
Three ledger books containing original pictographic drawings by Shamans of Amazon Indian tribes — traded directly from the Medicine Men who created them. Each book is identified by the shaman’s name, tribe, age, and the date drawn, with a translation of what the drawings meant.
These peoples had no written language. Their pictographic writings are practically unknown — the Library of Congress holds only a few sketches. Approximately 100 pages each, 10×12 inches, drawn in native pigment.
Also included: three Shaman’s medicine rattles from the Shipibo and Wai-Wai tribes, elaborately carved and collected directly from the medicine men who used them in tribal healing ceremonies.
The Hendershott Reference Library
Companion to the Amazon Collection — approximately 715 volumes, inventoried December 2018.
Assembled over decades to support the study of the Amazon Collection and related world cultures, the reference library spans German, French, Spanish, and English titles — monographs, exhibition catalogs, auction catalogs, and standard references on Pre-Columbian, ethnographic, numismatic, and historical subjects.
The library was placed with M.A.R.I. so that the books and the objects they document could be studied side by side.
Peru, Mesoamerica & Mexico
- Lords of Sipan — Sidney D. Kirkpatrick
- The Spirit of Ancient Peru — Kathleen Berrin
- The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec — Mary Ellen Miller
- Nordperuanische Gefaßmalereien des Moche-Stils — Gerdt Kutscher
- Las Salinas de Chao — Walter Alva; and a deep run of German-language monographs on Inca, Moche, and Chavín cultures
Native American & American Indian Art
- Native American Art — Richard Conn
- Circles of the World — Richard Conn
- Beads and Beadwork of the American Indians — William C. Orchard
- Navajo Rugs — Gilbert S. Maxwell
- Vestiges of a Proud Nation — Glenn E. Markoe; Indian Basketry of Western North America; Important Native American Art, The Hendershott Collection (Heritage)
China, Japan & Buddhist Art
- Der Erste Kaiser von China — Arthur Cotterell
- Kunstschätze aus China — Helmut Brinker & Roger Goepper
- Edo Architecture: Katsura and Nikko — Naomi Okawa
- Angkor, Heart of an Asian Empire — Bruno Dagens
- Etude Iconographique Sur Manjusri; Das Buddhistische Heiligtum; the three-volume Chinesisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch
Islamic Art & Material Culture
- Islamische Kunst aus den Berliner Museen
- Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin
- Art Islamique — Ader Picard Tajan
- Silberschatze des Orients — Boris Marschak
- Der Jemen, Nord- und Südjemen — Peter Wald; and a range of Berlin-school exhibition catalogs
African & Oceanic Art
- Bonhams, Art of the South Seas
- Sotheby’s, African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian Art
- Christie’s, Six chefs d’œuvre d’art africain de la Collection Kahane
- Sotheby’s, A New York Collection: Arts d’Afrique
- The Feminine Personified Woman in the Ritual Art of the Congo; Tribal Arms Monographs; runs of African Arts and The Magazine of Tribal Art
Catalogs, Coins & Louisiana
- Historical Scarabs — Flinders-Petrie
- The Standard Catalog of American Coins; A Guidebook for the Identification of Roman Coin Inscriptions; The Complete Book of Coin Collecting
- Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries — The Richard C. Frajola Collection of Classic Worldwide Covers, 1840–1860; The Louis Grunin Collection
- Heritage, Inaugural Auction of Civil War History; Broadfoot, Civil War Books
- Handbook and Guide to the Louisiana State Museum (1934); Preservation Guide 3: Paintings (THNOC); and a long shelf of dealer and auction catalogs
Louisiana & Civil War Material
Multiple gifts, 1983 – 2015 — a decades-long relationship with the Williams Research Center in the French Quarter.
Beginning in the early 1980s, Gary placed Louisiana correspondence, Confederate-era archives, postcards, and photographs with The Historic New Orleans Collection, where they are accessible to researchers in the Williams Research Center. Two of the gifts — the Civil War newspapers and the Washington Artillery archive — are catalogued under his name.
The Hendershott Collection of Civil War Newspapers
Approximately 1,077 issues across roughly ten linear feet — the principal New Orleans dailies of the war and Reconstruction era: the Daily True Delta, the New Orleans Times, and the New Orleans Daily Crescent. (accession 2001-87-L)
The William Miller Owen Archive
The papers of Lt. Col. William Miller Owen of the famed Washington Artillery of New Orleans — manuscript petitions and letters, receipts, business contracts, broadsides, commissions, manuscript drafts, and proof sheets documenting one of the Confederacy’s most distinguished artillery units. (accession 2004.0281)
The Bellocq & Friedlander Photographs
Two gelatin silver prints made by Lee Friedlander from E. J. Bellocq’s original glass negatives of Storyville — one a reclining nude on a wicker daybed, the other a masked nude on a floral-print sofa — accompanied by Polly Platt’s March 1977 screenplay for Pretty Baby. (accession 2015.0221)
Postcards of Old New Orleans
Thirty picture postcards, circa 1905 – 1958, by E. C. Kropp, Curt Teich, H. S. Crocker, and others — the French Quarter, Mardi Gras parades, the Old Absinthe House, the Cabildo, the Garden District, the lace balconies, and the dueling grounds at City Park. (accession 1983.222)
Early Louisiana Correspondence
- Charles Ehrman letter, 15 September 1884
- “Running the Blockade” lithograph envelope, ca. 1861–65 — a man riding an alligator with a crate marked For New Orleans and a Market
- New Orleans Young Ladies’ Institute and St. Simeon’s School billheads (1867–1870)
- Consulat de France letter regarding a portrait of Gouverneur De Lassus
- The Hendershott New Orleans and Louisiana Collection — correspondence and newsclippings, 1867–1899
827 St. Philip Street, Vieux Carré
A three-quarter-view watercolor by Boyd Cruise of the Creole cottage at 827 St. Philip Street — pitched roof, two chimneys, shuttered doors and windows, side gates, with neighboring facades visible at the edges. (accession 1997.4)
Arkansas & Early-American Material
Multiple gifts, 1999 – 2012 — to the state-history museum of Gary’s home state.
The Old State House Museum, housed in Arkansas’s original 1836 capitol, preserves material relating to the state’s political and cultural history. Gary’s gifts span the American Founding, the Confederacy, and Arkansas’s 20th-century cultural life.
Washington on Horseback
A monumental oil painting depicting George Washington on horseback in the foreground, with his troops encamped behind him — a Founding-era subject in the grand manner. (accession 99.033)
The Bowie Knives
A Confederate side knife with wooden stag handle and all-brass trim, the guard stamped C.S.A. (1999) — and a second Bowie with a clip-point blade and ornamental ivory handle (2003). (accessions 99.043 and 2003.013)
The Samuel G. French Archive
Papers of Confederate Major General Samuel G. French — his letter to Col. John P. Nicholson recalling his service, his twenty-chapter book covering the Mexican War and the War Between the States, his carte-de-visite portrait in uniform, and a related notecard. (accession 2008.018)
The 1904 Little Rock Convention
A speech delivered to the convention that met in Little Rock on 16 May 1904, together with a letter written on the letterhead of the National Republican League — documenting Arkansas’s turn-of-the-century political life. (accession 2010.086)
The 2012 Bequest
- Brandon & Brandon, An Analysis of Gothic Architecture, vols. I & II (Edinburgh, 19th c.)
- Ramsay, The Life of George Washington, and Sower, The Washingtoniana
- Weems, Das Leben … des Georg Washington (Baltimore, 1817)
- The War Department, Revised Regulations for the Army of the United States 1861
- John Kushmaul, Mr. Fancy Dancin’ Man (72×46 in.) and Aspen Fall Landscape
Everyday Life of the Period
A two-tone Albany stoneware whiskey jug; a pair of Carte-de-Visite frames; a leather wallet; a hand-carved ‘whimsy’ bible; a mother-of-pearl traveling inkwell; opera glasses; a chest of drawers and a card table — the furnishings and small objects of a 19th-century American household. (accession 2008.011)
A Public Trust
Each donation was made absolutely and irrevocably, with the wish that the material serve scholars, curators, and the public in perpetuity.
The Amazon Tribal Art Collection and the reference library that accompanies it are held by the Middle America Research Institute and the Latin American Library at Tulane University in New Orleans. The Louisiana and Civil War material is held by The Historic New Orleans Collection. The Arkansas and early-American material is held by the Old State House Museum in Little Rock — in the building that served as Arkansas’s original 1836 state capitol.