Judge Honors Georgia O’Keeffe, Snubs Alice Walton

When painter Georgia O’Keeffe donated her late husband, famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s collection of work to Fisk University, she didn’t mean for the University to turn around and sell it. A Tennessee judge ruled that sharing the historic collection with Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton would violate the terms of O’Keeffe’s will. The ruling ensures that Stieglitz’s work will remain in Tennessee.

Fisk is the latest in a long series of financially unstable institutions Alice Walton has been preying on for dirt cheap fine art. To those in the art world, Alice Walton has become a modern day robber baron, taking advantage of smaller organizations and using whatever means necessary to strong-arm a low price. Wonder where she learned that from.

Judge Nixes University Plan to Share Art [Associated Press]

A judge on Friday threw out Fisk University’s $30 million proposal to share an art collection with a museum founded by a Wal-Mart heiress in Arkansas.

Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle said the deal was not in keeping with the wishes of artist Georgia O’Keeffe, who donated the 101-piece collection to the historically black university in 1949.

Lyle said O’Keeffe never meant for the cash-strapped school to use it for fundraising purposes.

The art-sharing proposal would have seen the collection travel between Nashville and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. The museum was founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.

A trial scheduled for later this month will now determine whether Fisk should forfeit the entire collection to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in New Mexico.

The Santa Fe museum is the legal representative of the artist’s estate. Its lawyers argue that the school has been violating O’Keeffe’s conditions that the collection be kept on display and not sold.

Fisk put the art into storage in 2005 because the gallery where it was exhibited was falling apart, and there were fears the works could get damaged.

At issue is a collection of art that belonged to O’Keeffe’s husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. It includes what is considered one of O’Keeffe’s masterpieces, the 1927 oil painting “Radiator Building — Night, New York,” as well as works by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer and Charles Demuth.

O’Keeffe donated to Fisk because the school, founded in 1866, educated blacks at a time when the South was segregated.

“The donation to an African-American university made a public statement and gesture to heighten the consciousness of a segregated society that African-Americans and their institutions ranked equally, among and as a vital part of American society and the cultural arts,” Lyle wrote in her ruling.

Lyle noted that when O’Keeffe gave artworks to two other institutions she gave them the right to sell those pieces after 25 years. “This right was not given to Fisk,” she wrote.

“She had no personal connection to Fisk from which one could conclude that she had an intent to have the Collection used to keep Fisk in operation.”

After-hours messages left with the Crystal Bridges Museum’s public relations firm and the president of the O’Keeffe Museum were not immediately returned.

“While it’s obviously not the outcome we fought for, it does not diminish our fundraising efforts ... we will defend vigorously against the O’Keeffe Museum’s effort to take this collection away from Fisk,” Fisk spokesman Ken West said. “They’ll have the fight of their lives.”

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, February 11, 2008

Click Here for a Printer-Friendly Version

COMMENTS

I can’t help it. Everytime I see that pic of Alice I hear the words…

I’ll get you my pretty… and your little dog too!

Ken V in Texas
Tuesday, February 12 at 04:35 AM

Ken V in Texas: Many years ago,the WalMart annual corporate meetings,held in Bentonville, were activity filled weekend events, including picnic lunches at the Walton home and canoe floats down the Sugar River.A promotional flier also promised a “taste” of Alice Walton’s “Ozark- Cajun” Bone Mending Stew.The illustrated flier depicted a drawing of a woman,presumably Alice,wearing overalls and smoking a corncob pipe,stirring a giant pot full of dead snakes and chickens.Life imitating art,indeed. I wonder how much $$$ one of those fliers could bring at auction,today?

ddrb in
Tuesday, February 12 at 11:15 AM

Ken V: Is this cosmic convergence that this is occuring in February, which is designated as Black History Month?

ddrb in
Tuesday, February 19 at 05:00 PM

“O’Keeffe Museum Opens Arguments To Take Art Collection From Fisk”
This article was published on Tuesday, February 19, 2008
By The Associated Press—- NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Attorneys for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in New Mexico argued on Tuesday that Fisk University has violated the terms of an agreement with the late painter and should forfeit a prized art collection she donated.

The museum, which represents O’Keeffe’s estate, made the arguments in a trial that could finally settle the long-running legal battle over the 101-piece Alfred E. Stieglitz collection.

Museum attorney Bill Harbison argued under terms reached by the artist and then-leaders of the historically black university, the collection was supposed to be kept on display and never sold.

The works, which include O’Keeffe’s famous 1927 work “Radiator Building - Night, New York,” have been in storage at a Nashville museum for about two years.

The financially struggling university had been seeking the sell at least some of the works and has been fought at each step by the Santa Fe museum.

Most recently, Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle struck down a proposal by Fisk to sell half its share in the collection for $30 million to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Fisk attorneys argued in opening statements it has not “repudiated” the collection because it went to court seeking permission before it attempted to sell any works.

The works are not on display because the university is still trying to raise money to fix the Carl Van Vechten Gallery where they were being shown.

“Van Vechten was closed because they were doing expensive security and fire protection work and they didn’t want it to be damaged,” attorney John Branham said.

Branham also pointed out much of the collection was not on display for 12 years starting in the 1970s while they were being restored.

There was little testimony scheduled on Tuesday. Much of the evidence being entered into the court record centers around correspondence, some of it dating back to the 1940s, between the artist and Fisk officials setting the terms of her 1949 donation.

Lyle, who is hearing the case, addressed some of those terms in her rejection of the Arkansas deal on Feb. 8.

Lyle noted when O’Keeffe gave artworks to two other institutions she gave them the right to sell those pieces after 25 years. “This right was not given to Fisk,” she wrote.

“She had no personal connection to Fisk from which one could conclude that she had an intent to have the collection used to keep Fisk in operation.”

ddrb in
Wednesday, February 20 at 01:07 PM

Commenting is not available in this content entry.