Disputed O'Keeffe sale in Nashville

Nashville's Fisk University has been embroiled in a legal battle with Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum over the school's attempt to sell a Georgia O'Keeffe painting, Radiator Building--Night, New York (1927) from its Stieglitz Collection, given by O'Keeffe in 1949 (Alfred Stieglitz died in 1946). The museum has tried to block the proposed sale on the grounds that it violates the terms of O'Keeffe's bequest, which mandates that the collection be on public view and that works cannot be loaned or sold. Spokesmen claim that the sale would void the gift and that the entire collection would revert to the museum, which is the successor to the artist's estate. The case goes to trial on July 18. The historically black university announced plans in 2005 to sell the O'Keeffe along with Marsden Hartley's Painting No. 3 (1913) in order to restore $8 million to the school's endowment, construct a new science building, endow three chairs and pay for the collection's upkeep.

In February, the lawsuit was close to being resolved before Tennessee attorney general Robert Cooper nixed the deal, which involved the museum acquiring the work for $7 million, to be paid in installments, in exchange for not opposing the sale of the Hartley. Based on a 2005 appraisal from Christie's that valued each of the two works at $8.5 million, Cooper had initially approved the settlement, though art dealers have said the works are worth upwards of $20 million each, and the school has received offers in the $20-25-million range for the O'Keeffe. In a letter to the museum's and university's attorneys excerpted on Legalnewsline.com, Cooper said that "while the settlement agreement is of obvious advantage for the Museum, which would obtain the Radiator Building at a bargain-basement price, it would represent both an artistic and financial loss for Fisk and would detract from the rich cultural environment of this community."

Museum president Saul Cohen has stated that the museum is not purchasing the work, per se, but that the acquisition is part of a legal settlement, thereby justifying the lower price tag. He was also quoted on diverseeducation.com asserting that "the painting is not for sale, can't be sold and this is not an auction. This is a settlement. We're a nonprofit institution ... not in the business of bailing out a failing institution."

News of the deal sparked a controversy, with criticism leveled at both the school for its fiscal and cultural short-sightedness and the museum for its low-ball offer, which prompted Cooper to call for a 30-day cooling-off period to solicit alternative solutions that would keep the collection intact and in Tennessee. Fisk received two bids to buy the work for $20-25 million; an offer involving payment of $11.5 million to each institution and joint ownership and rotating possession among the school, museum and the third unidentified party; and numerous other proposals, including an offer to purchase the work for $25 million and place it on long-term loan at the O'Keeffe Museum, which the museum reportedly declined.

According to a detailed timeline published in the Tennessean, the collection appears to have been a neglected stepchild at Fisk. In 194649, O'Keeffe divided Stieglitz's holdings among six institutions, giving 97 works to Fisk at the urging of writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten (for whom the school's gallery is named). In 1949 she placed four additional works, including Radiator Building, on permanent loan to the university as part of the Stieglitz Collection, and officially donated them in 1954. A Dec. 11, 1949, article in the New York Times Magazine quotes O'Keeffe as saying that "after 25 years, the [pictures] can be sold if the institutions have no further use for them." When O'Keeffe learned that the school was not caring for the collection properly, it was sent to New York in 1977 for several years for restoration. She later donated $20,000 to Fisk to assist with the collection's upkeep, and the works went back on view in 1984. As early as 1985, the school considered selling parts or all of the collection to offset mounting debt. Before her death in 1986, O'Keeffe gave Fisk another $50,000. In 2002-03, it listed works from the collection as part of its endowment to compensate for the millions it has spent to cover operating costs. Communications between Fisk president Hazel O'Leary and O'Keeffe Museum director George King began in August 2005. She later asked King whether the museum would store the collection for safekeeping while the school's gallery undergoes renovation, and hinted that it might be selling an O'Keeffe painting. On Dec. 6, 2005, Fisk formally announced its intention to sell the two works, and on Jan. 3, 2006, the O'Keeffe Foundation filed a motion to block the sale.

The scenario is somewhat familiar to observers of the recent Eakins sale, in which Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University sold The Gross Clinic to raise funds [see "Front Page," Feb. '07]. In related news, Christie's announced in April that it had negotiated another Jefferson University sale, for an undisclosed amount, of Eakins's Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand (1874) to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. Scheduled to open in 2009, the museum had initially tried to purchase The Gross Clinic, which sparked the feverish campaign in Philadelphia to prevent the work from leaving. The local community in Nashville, however, has not rallied to keep the O'Keeffe in the city. Currently, the Stieglitz Collection is in storage at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts while the Van Vechten gallery is closed for renovation.

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