University appeals O'Keeffe art ruling

Erik Schelzig | The Associated Press

1/5/2009 - 1/6/09

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A court order has forced Fisk University to reopen the gallery displaying a collection donated by artist Georgia O'Keeffe, but the school isn't giving up its legal fight for the right to sell the artworks.

The state Court of Appeals is schedule to hear arguments this week over last year's ruling that Fisk can't sell any of the donated artwork — and that it would lose the entire collection if it wasn't retrieved from storage and put back on display.

The gallery on Fisk's Nashville campus reopened to little fanfare in October after nearly three years out of the public eye.

O'Keeffe donated the collection, including her own 1927 oil painting Radiator Building — Night, New York, to the historically black university in 1949, a time when segregation prevented Southern blacks from visiting many museums.

Lucius Outlaw Jr. said a recent visit to the gallery brought back memories of time spent studying the collection as a Fisk undergraduate in the mid-1960s. Outlaw, now a professor at Vanderbilt University and a critic of the school's management, said officials there haven't made enough of an effort to drive traffic to the collection.

"Obviously a lot more could be done and should be done," Outlaw said.

He also disagreed with the decision to mount an appeal. "But I never thought trying to sell any of the collection was smart," he said.

The artworks were part of a collection that belonged to O'Keeffe's late husband, the photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz. Art historians say the collection has an appealing unity because many of the American artists were part of O'Keeffe and Stieglitz's circle of friends.

In addition to two paintings by O'Keeffe, the 101-piece collection includes works by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley and Diego Rivera.

Saul Cohen, president of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, said Fisk may be taking a different approach to marketing the gallery because its main focus is education, not art.

Still, he said, more could be done to attract visitors.

"They must have, I would guess, deliberately decided to play it low key," he said.

Cohen said Fisk's approach contrasts with the New Mexico museum, which controls more than 50 percent of O'Keeffe's artwork and is the legal representative of her estate. "We have constant marketing," he said, targeting both adults and children.

The O'Keeffe Museum intervened to prevent Fisk's original plan to sell Radiator Building and Hartley's Painting No. 3 on the open market because of O'Keeffe's conditions that the collection not be sold. The museum later unsuccessfully proposed to buy the O'Keeffe painting from Fisk and allow the school to sell the Hartley on the open market.

But the museum would still be in line to receive the collection if Fisk violates the court order. Cohen said his museum would seek to draw much more attention to the Radiator Building.

"We would give it the attention that it deserves, that's for sure," he said.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said he was unaware the collection was back on display. The governor said it was unusual for him not to have heard about the gallery reopening.

"I usually get about 14 invitations to help launch one of those," he said.

A Fisk spokesman did not return a message seeking to find out how many people have visited the gallery since it reopened.

Fisk is appealing Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle's decision in March that the school broke the terms of O'Keeffe's donation by not keeping the collection on display and by trying to sell parts of it. But Lyle also ruled the school shouldn't have to forfeit the collection to the New Mexico museum as long as it keeps it on display.

Lyle had also rejected a $30 million arrangement for Fisk to share the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. The museum was founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.