Fisk Reaches Settlement with O’Keeffe Museum

Fisk University has reached a settlement with the Georgia O’Keeffe museum which had been blocking the sale of two paintings donated to the school by the late artist. The agreement would allow the financially-strapped school to sell one painting to the museum for a discounted rate and another on the open market.

If the terms are approved by the Davidson County chancellor, O’Keefe’s work Radiator Building, Night New York will go to the Santa Fe museum for 7.5 million dollars. Marsden Hartley’s Painting No. 3 is expected to command 20-million dollars in a thriving art market.

The two-year court battle with the O’Keeffe museum has taken a toll on the small, historically black college. Fisk spokesman Ken West says the school needed the money in the first place but now is in jeopardy of being sanctioned by its accrediting body.

West says a court ruling earlier this summer dashed hopes of being able to sell both paintings on the open market.

“The prohibition against the sale has eliminated any notion that there is a market value for any of these works and that at present makes settlement the most viable and pragmatic option.”

The school plans to use the settlement cash to return money to the endowment, make some building improvements and cover operational costs.

The O’Keeffe painting will return to Fisk every four years to be put on display. The Tennessee attorney general had prohibited a similar settlement that didn’t allow for periodic visits early this year.

WEB EXTRA:

Filed with Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle Monday, August 6th at 4 pm. Terms of the agreement still must meet approval of Chancellor Lyle. The Tennessee Attorney General, Robert Cooper, could also weigh in as the state’s steward of charitable gifts.

Current terms:

– If the court approves the settlement, the parties will ask for a final, non-appealable order dismissing the O’Keeffe Museum’s counterclaims that Fisk hasn’t properly cared for the donated collection.

– Fisk will deliver Radiator Building, Night New York to the museum in Santa Fe.

– The museum will lend Radiator Building to Fisk for four months every four years.

– The museum, which is already the sole owner of all reproduction rights to Radiator Building, will have a high quality reproduction made of Radiator Building and will give that reproduction to Fisk to be displayed with the Stieglitz Collection when the original is not at Fisk.

– Should the museum sell Radiator Building within 20 years after transfer of title to it, the museum will pay Fisk half of the selling price over $7.5 million.

– The museum will waive any objection to Fisk’s sale of Painting No. 3 by Marsden Hartley. If Fisk elects to sell Painting No. 3, it will use best efforts to sell to a buyer who agrees to keep the painting in Tennessee or who agrees to lend the painting periodically to Fisk for exhibit. As a condition of the purchase, the buyer must promise that, as long as it owns the painting, it will ‘assure to the public, under reasonable regulations, access to the painting to promote the study of art.’

– The museum will pay Fisk for the O’Keeffe painting in three installments by April 1, 2008.

– Fisk will set aside up to $392,000 from the money it receives from the museum and the sale of the Marsden Hartley and will spend up to $560,000 to stabilize and restore the Van Vechten Gallery to a point that it can be reopened to the public with the Stieglitz Collection on exhibit, properly protected.