Fisk (Univ.) Says It Must Sell O'Keeffe Art Collection to Survive

[ensho]

http://www.theroot.com/views/fisk-university-owns-nashville-s-greatest-public-art-collection


Fisk University is on the brink. The endowment of the tiny, historic school in Nashville, which opened its doors to newly freed slaves in 1865, is depleted. Every building on the campus where poet Nikki Giovanni, historian John Hope Franklin, and educator and activist W.E.B. Du Bois were educated has been mortgaged.

Fisk President Hazel R. O'Leary says that the only asset of real value left is the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern American and European Art. It is a $74 million trove of early modernist masterpieces that artist Georgia O'Keeffe donated to the school six decades ago. The art's presence at Fisk is a source of joy, consternation and dispute.

Fisk, which had slightly more than 800 undergraduate students in 2009, has tried to sell off parts of the expensive-to-maintain collection for years. The sale has been blocked by legal challenges, first by the O'Keeffe estate, then by the state of Tennessee. Those opposed to a sale argue that Georgia O'Keeffe saw the collection as a gift to Fisk and the people of the South, not as a cash machine from which to make withdrawals.

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In August, the case landed in a Nashville court again. Fisk petitioned for release from the strict conditions of O'Keeffe's bequest and for permission to sell a half-share in the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for $30 million. The agreement would rotate the collection between the campus and the not-yet-constructed museum being bankrolled by Walmart heiress Alice Walton in Bentonville, Ark.

In October, a judge will decide whether saving one means sacrificing the other.
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hoping Fisk can continue as a great univ. AND keep the art.

[CTyankee]

1. What a sad thing.

I remember Brandeis went thru the same thing a few years ago. I never did find out what happened there...

On edit: here's the upshot of the situation http://thebrandeishoot.com/articles/8080. They're essentially renting out the art...perhaps Fisk could do the same thing...

[hlthe2b]

2. Seems like the half-share sale which allows them to keep the art

but simply rotate with the museum is a good solution. I hope the powers that be are wise enough to realize.