A Tennessee court has ruled that Fisk University cannot sell either of the two paintings it's been trying to sell from its O'Keeffe Collection. According to an article in today's Nashville Tennessean,
"Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle agreed with the [position of the O'Keeffe museum], noting in an 18-page order that O'Keeffe donated the collection expressly for educational purposes, to be used to help Fisk students in the study of art. ... '[T]he only conclusion a reasonable person can reach,' Lyle wrote, 'is that it is the Collection as a whole, not the individual artworks, which accomplishes the educational purpose specified at the time of the donation and that the donation was not given to Fisk to use as a source of revenue…. Dividing the Collection destroys the identity and effect and the charitable purpose (of O'Keeffe's gift). Similarly selling the entire Collection converts it into a source of revenue for the University and destroys the art educational purpose.'"
The article notes that "this latest development does not end the case, which is still set for trial on July 16." I haven't seen a copy of the opinion, but it's not clear what's left to be decided at a trial. In the meantime, we can take a preliminary look at the winners and losers.
The "radical conservative" anti-deaccessionists should be happy. Fisk can't sell off any part of the collection.
Presumably the O'Keeffe Museum is happy. They brought the lawsuit to prevent the sale, and it sounds like the court handed them a complete victory.
Fisk is the big loser. They wanted to sell the two paintings and then, when the O'Keeffe Museum intervened to block the sale, they agreed to a settlement that would have yielded perhaps $25 million or more, which they apparently desperately need, only to have the Tennessee Attorney General kill the deal.
The Attorney General is a trickier case. Initially, he approved the settlement between Fisk and the museum, but later, when it became clear what a huge discount the museum would be getting on the purchase of one of the two paintings, he withdrew his approval. His most recent statement of his position was that he wanted to "to keep this collection intact," which this decision seems to do. So let's count him a winner too (which I guess means that everybody wins . . . except the university).
Incidentally, this outcome reinforces a point I made a couple months ago in response to those who were arguing that the price the museum had agreed to pay under the settlement was "too low," that, if it truly wanted the painting, "it should be ready to pay what it's worth." As I pointed out at the time, this line of argument ignored the fact that the museum apparently had -- and was agreeing to give up as part of the deal -- a very strong legal position that the sale shouldn't happen at all. As I said then, "supporters of the university may come to regret the decision to leave twenty million on the table just because it wasn't forty."
