Fisk University Cannot Sell O'Keeffe Art, Tennessee Judge Rules
Fisk University Cannot Sell O'Keeffe Art, Tennessee Judge Rules
A judge in Tennessee has ruled that Fisk University in Nashville cannot sell any of the works of art donated in 1949 by Georgia O'Keeffe, the Associated Press reports.
Davidson County chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ordered the historically black university not to sell any of the 101 works — some of which are worth millions of dollars — in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, noting that they were donated to be used for the purposes of art education. "Dividing the collection destroys the identity and effect of the charitable purpose [of O'Keeffe's gift]," Lyle wrote in her decision.
Compiled by O'Keeffe's photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz, the collection includes works by Picasso, Cezanne, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as O'Keeffe. Since 2005, Fisk has been waging a legal battle over whether it could sell two works — O'Keeffe's Radiator Building - Night, New York and Marsden Hartley's Painting No. 3 — to help replenish its endowment. In April, Tennessee attorney general Bob Cooper ordered Fisk not to sell Radiator Building to the O'Keeffe Museum for $7 million after other bids were submitted for as much as $25 million.
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which represents the late painter's estate, has sued the university for violating the terms of her bequest, and a trial is scheduled to begin in July.
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