BENTONVILLE Ark.
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in New Mexico plans to challenge a $30 million plan for Fisk University to share its prized art collection with a new Arkansas museum.
The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville has offered Fisk the money to share a 50 percent stake in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of Modern American and European Art, donated to Fisk by painter Georgia O’Keeffe in 1949.
The historically black university has been trying to raise money to replenish its endowment by selling some of the paintings in the collection, which includes famous works by O’Keeffe, Stieglitz and others.
The New Mexico museum, which represents the late painter’s estate, blocked any sale by suing the school, claiming it was violating the conditions of her gift to the school.
Davidson County, Tenn., Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle must approve the partnership between Crystal Bridges and Fisk. A hearing scheduled for Friday was postponed to Oct. 22.
Saul Cohen, president of the board of the Santa Fe, N.M., Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, said the shared ownership would violate the agreement between Fisk and O’Keeffe concerning her donation.
