Tennessee Court Says Fisk U. Can Sell O'Keeffe Paintings

Fisk University can go ahead with plans to raise money with an art collection donated by Georgia O’Keeffe, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday. The decision was the latest in a three-year series of court battles between the university and a New Mexico museum.

The ruling will allow the financially struggling university to move forward with attempts to either sell some of the paintings or split the works with an Arkansas museum. Those efforts have been stymied by lower courts.

Tuesday’s decision overturns a lower court’s ruling that forbade Fisk to sell part of the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, in Bentonville, Ark., in a proposed $30-million deal for a 50-percent share.

When the artist made the gift to Fisk, 60 years ago, she set conditions, one of which called for all 101 works to be displayed together. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, in Santa Fe., N.M., argued that the university would violate that clause if it sold any of the paintings.

But the Tennessee court this week said O’Keeffe’s rights to most of the works ended when she died. The Santa Fe museum represents the artist’s estate.

The university first tried to sell two paintings, “Radiator Building—Night, New York,” by O’Keeffe, and “Painting No. 3,” by Marsden Hartley, in 2005. The O’Keeffe museum sued shortly thereafter.

The case will be returned to the Davidson County Chancery Court, according to an article in The Tennessean, a newspaper in Nashville. —Erica R. Hendry

Correction: As several commenters have noted below, our initial report on the court’s ruling was faulty. In its decision, which was not available at the time our original article was posted, the court did not rule that Fisk could proceed with sales of the paintings. Rather, it ruled that the university should be given the opportunity to seek relief from restrictions on a gift that could no longer be met. The university will have to seek such relief from a judge who will decide whether Fisk deserves relief and, if so, what form it should take. One possible outcome would be a sale of the art. But other outcomes are also possible. The court also ruled that the O’Keeffe Museum lacks standing in this case.