Judge Rejects University Deal to Sell Art for Ailing University

A Tennessee judge has rejected a proposal by Fisk University in Nashville to sell a valuable collection of paintings and photographs to shore up the college’s finances, reports The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The university had proposed selling paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe (among other works) for $30-million to the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Arkansas, a museum owned by an heir to the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The heir, Alice Walton, has also promised to donate $1-million to restore the campus’s museum, which has fallen into such disrepair that the works were put into storage in 2005. The university would have retained a 50-percent share of the works under the deal.

However, according to Tennessee law, a judge must approve any changes to the conditions of a donation like Ms. O’Keeffe’s, and a local judge ruled last week that the sale would not reflect the wishes of the artist, who donated her works on the condition they be kept on display and never sold.

An unrelated case starting February 19 will determine whether the university must forfeit the collection to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M.