Building Bridges

From the inbox this morning:

Fisk University's board of trustees has approved an arrangement with Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art that would have the university giving the museum a half stake in its Alfred Stieglitz Collection — meaning the collection will spend half of its time at the university and the other half at the museum — for $30 million.

It's the second proposal that's been set forth to alleviate Fisk's financial woes.

After the Nashville, Tennessee university decided it wanted to sell pieces from the collection, given to Fisk by Stieglitz's estate and the photographer's wife, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe cried foul. The gift was made, it said, to be a permanent teaching resource for the university. The two parties eventually came up with a settlement proposal whereby the university would send O'Keeffe's Radiator Building — Night, New York to the museum in exchange for $7.5 million and be allowed to sell a work by Marsden Hartley. But a court rejected the pitch earlier this month after Walton put her offer on the table, and the O'Keeffe Museum decided to drop a suit against Fisk that sought to keep the university from selling any art from the collection.

Sweetening the Crystal Bridges deal, Walton herself will give $1 million to update Fisk's Carl Van Vechten Gallery, and the museum, located in Bentonville, Arkansas will fund an internship program for Fisk students, placing particular emphasis on the Stieglitz Collection.

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle, who rejected the Fisk-O'Keeffe proposal, believed that Walton's tender was a better option for the university. She was right. Not only would it mean more money for Fisk's coffers — a lot more — it would also keep the entire collection in tact, even if it isn't always displayed in Fisk's gallery. What's more, the internship program is a concession to the complaint that the collection was meant to benefit the education of Fisk students. No matter how great the backlash against Alice Walton's acquisitive practices, her museum will be home to important pieces of American art, and it will only benefit Fisk to be associated with that.

Before the deal can be sealed, the court has to give its blessing.

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