Denial of Fisk proposal frustrates area art lovers
Posted on Sunday, February 10, 2008
Jason Reid and Golsa Yaghoobi spent Saturday afternoon in the Fine Arts Library of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville among dozens of books filled with images of American art.
They had hoped one day to see at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art some of the images they were studying — including many photographs made by Alfred Stieglitz.
The museum, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, is scheduled to open in Bentonville in 2010.
A proposed $ 30 million deal between the museum and Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tenn., would have brought 19 of Stieglitz’s photographs to the area, along with 82 other works of art, including pieces by Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Maurer and Charles Demuth.
But on Friday, a Tennessee judge ruled that the deal wasn’t legal and denied it. Fisk spokesman Ken West said the university will appeal.
Reid, from Spain, and Yaghoobi, from Iran, are disappointed.
“We see pictures and slides, but slides and pictures aren’t as good as the actual piece of art,” Reid said. “Reading about it is one thing, and when you see it, it’s totally different.”
The Alfred Stieglitz Collection was a gift from American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, widow of the artist and collector.
Tennessee law requires a judge’s approval of any plans to alter the conditions of a public gift. In 2005, Fisk sought to sell the collection’s premier paintings —O’Keeffe’s Radiator Building — Night, New York and Hartley’s Painting No. 3 — to help rebuild its depleted finances. A court filing in September showed the university could lose its accreditation if the deal with Crystal Bridges was denied.
Under the proposal, the museum would split ownership of the overall collection 50-50, finance transporting the collection between locations, and create an internship program for Fisk students at Crystal Bridges.
Walton also said she’d give Fisk $ 1 million after the deal was approved to renovate the university’s gallery space. The Stieglitz Collection was put in storage in 2005 because the gallery had fallen into disrepair.
It’s unclear whether that donation will be made. Efforts to reach Bob Workman, executive director of Crystal Bridges, at his home Saturday weren’t successful.
Mitchell Communications, the museum’s public relations firm, said there would be no statement.
Late last year, Workman said the internship program would continue regardless of the legal outcome of the deal.
A Feb. 19 trial intended to evaluate the Crystal Bridges deal will shift to whether the entire collection should revert to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N. M., according to a ruling issued Friday by Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle.
O’Keeffe gave the art collection to the historically black university in 1949 on the condition that it be kept intact, on display and never sold.
The O’Keeffe Museum has challenged Fisk’s efforts to sell the artwork since early 2006 and claims to be the successor of the painter’s estate. The museum’s lawyers argue Fisk is violating O’Keeffe’s wishes because the artwork isn’t being displayed.
Lenny Campelo, a contributor to National Public Radio and an art blogger, said it would be a loss to the Southeast if the collection moved to Santa Fe.
“Great American art that should be available to the public goes to the magnet places of the country,” Campelo said. “It’s a loss not only in a sense of the paintings, but it’s also denying O’Keeffe’s own wishes [of having the works available ]. I think by going halfway and sharing it, it would’ve been closer to what she wanted.”
Donald Harington, a UA professor of American art, wrote in an e-mail that his 30 students, including Reid and Yaghoobi, will be disappointed by the judge’s decision.
“O’Keeffe made quite clear that she wanted the collection to be available to the public,” he wrote. “There is no better venue than Crystal Bridges for making it available to the public. The audience at Crystal Bridges will far surpass the audience at the New Mexico O’Keeffe museum.” Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.
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