1930s Native American bandolier bag with woodland motifs with red pompom fringes at the bottom
Artist Unknown (Ojibwe, possibly from Works Progress Administration). Beaded Bandolier Bag, ca. 1930s. Beads, fabric, ribbon, yarn, and thread. Collection of the Tweed Museum of Art, UMD. Richard E. and Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of American Indian Art, gift of Richard E. (Dick) Nelson. Photo Courtesy of Sharon Mollerus.

A highlight of the Native and Indigenous art collection is the Richard E. and Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of American Indian Art. This rich collection of baskets, birch bark, beadwork, quillwork, tourist art, and treaty portraits, primarily by the Great Lakes Ojibwe and Eastern Woodlands people, 1850–1950, reflects the visual culture of this region's Anishinaabe, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomie and First Nations people in Canada, among others. The Nelsons also collected contemporary Native art in the 1980s.