A college's art treasure dilemma: to sell or to hold?

An O'Keeffe painting is at the center of a storm over Fisk University's plan to raise funds by selling it.

By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the August 28, 2007 edition

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Atlanta - "Radiator Building," a Georgia O'Keeffe painting of a nighttime slab of New York skyline, is not merely a cornerstone of the art collection at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. It may also represent the college's salvation from desperate financial straits, if the artwork were to be sold on the open market.

But whether Fisk, one of the best-known of America's 114 historically black colleges, should sell "Radiator Building" has become a matter of debate and legal wrangling. It could fetch as much as $25 million for the struggling university, but critics say it would undermine O'Keeffe's intent for giving a collection of works, including "Radiator Building," to Fisk University in 1949. It's a matter, they say, of honoring artistic legacy and preserving the integrity of donors' gifts.

Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper Jr. is expected to file an opinion this week on the proposed sale.

Temptation can be strong among financially strapped small colleges, some of them black, to liquidate treasures for short-term cash relief.

"Many of our schools find themselves in tough dilemmas between what to do when you have an asset that can bring some much-needed funding" and how that's weighed against the original wishes of the donor, says Kassie Freeman, author of "African Americans and College Choice."

Though most of the 30 major art collections housed at black colleges focus on African-themed art, many contain "mainstream" pieces, says Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund in New York. Still, he says, the role of the O'Keeffe in the broader collection at Fisk can be debated.

"In many cases, [black schools] got works when they were not expensive and didn't seem to be very valuable, and 50 years later these works are worth substantial amounts of money," says Mr. Lomax.

When O'Keeffe handed Fisk a 101-piece collection that included everything from Cezanne sketches to photographs by her husband, Arthur Stieglitz, she wanted in part to show solidarity with African-Americans in the Jim Crow-era South. It also gave her an opportunity to have all the art permanently displayed in one place.

Yet as Fisk's endowment dwindled, maintaining the collection has become difficult, and many pieces are relegated to storage. A cash infusion would be used both to spruce up the museum and to bolster the school's endowment and general fund. "The major collection we're investing in is our students," Fisk President Hazel O'Leary has said about her push to sell the painting.

The first attempt to sell "Radiator Building" was blocked in court by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M., which argued that the deal broke with O'Keeffe's wishes to keep the collection together. Attorney General Cooper also interceded, saying the sale price of $7 million was too low. Bona fide counteroffers of more than $20 million have since appeared.

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