BENTONVILLE : Museum is granted presence in lawsuit
Posted on Saturday, December 22, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A judge has denied a legal motion by Fisk University to dismiss the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum from a lawsuit over the school’s attempt to sell a stake in an art collection to Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled that the New Mexico-based O’Keeffe museum has the right to be involved in the case because it is the executor of O’Keeffe’s estate.
O’Keeffe donated the 101-piece Alfred Steiglitz Collection to the university in 1949, but with the stipulation that it remain intact, always be on display and never sold. The collection contains works by O’Keeffe, the 20 th-century American artist, and photographs by her late husband, Steiglitz, as well as works by other artists.
Lyle also declined to rule out that the entire collection could revert back to the New Mexico museum if the historically black university loses its case.
Neither the school nor the museum immediately returned calls seeking comment Friday.
Fisk wants the judge to approve a $ 30 million deal to share the collection with Crystal Bridges. The Bentonville museum, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, is under construction, with plans to open in 2010.
A three-day trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 19 in Nashville to determine if Fisk can accept an offer by Crystal Bridges to split ownership of the collection. The college’s leaders have said the revenue from the art is essential to curing the school’s financial woes.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe is arguing it is the successor to the late painter’s estate.
In September, a judge rejected an agreement allowing the museum to buy just the collection’s premier painting, O’Keeffe’s Radiator Building — Night, New York, for $ 7. 5 million. The judge cited the $ 30 million offer for all the works from Crystal Bridges, yet share their ownership and display with Fisk, as a reason for rejecting the agreement.
Fisk’s Carl Van Vechten Gallery, which houses the collection at Fisk, has fallen into disrepair, and the entire collection has been in storage at Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts since November 2005. Fisk, which was founded in 1866 to educate former slaves, has struggled financially throughout its history. Information for this report was contributed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette staff.
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