Proposal made to take art donated by O'Keeffe from Fisk

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NASHVILLE – Attorney General Bob Cooper on Friday asked a judge to give the Tennessee Arts Commission temporary possession of a 101-piece collection donated to Fisk University by the late artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

The school in a statement called the proposal “nothing less than a theft of the art from Fisk” that could force the historically black university to close its doors.

Cooper’s proposal came after Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle last month rejected Fisk’s plan to sell a 50 percent stake in the collection to a Bentonville, Ark., museum for $30 million because the deal didn’t meet the terms of O’Keeffe’s donation in 1949.

Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle agreed with the school’s argument at trial that it can’t afford the upkeep of the collection, but urged the attorney general and the school to propose a “Nashville-based solution” that better adheres to O’Keeffe’s wishes than to share it with the Crystal Bridges Museum founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton.

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