Fisk-Crystal Bridges Deal: Trial Date Set; Walton's Spinners at Work

This just in: Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle has set a Feb. 19 date for a three-day trial on the question of whether Fisk University should be allowed to sell a half-share of its Stieglitz Collection to Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum.

This is undoubtedly not the "expedited" trial that Fisk had been hoping for. Reporting on yesterday's court hearing, Erik Schelzig of the Associated Press writes:

Pressed by Lyle on how dire the school's financial situation is, [Fisk attorney Stacey] Garrett said the school is making a final effort to find up to $1.5 million that could keep it afloat until mid-January.

Maybe Alice can come up with a bridge loan?

Chancellor Lyle wrote that she agreed with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (which is seeking to block the sale to Crystal Bridges) that "basic and essential pretrial procedures and trial preparation cannot be accomplished, even on an expedited schedule, by the end of the year."

Meanwhile, the Crystal Bridges PR campaign arrived at my inbox on Sunday at 1:31 a.m., in the form of a note from one Elise Mitchell of the Mitchell Communications Group, who wanted to bring to my attention this previous AP article by Schelzig, which repeatedly quotes Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery, taking the side of Crystal Bridges.

I sent an e-mail to Elise, who was previously unknown to me, to find out whom her company represents in relation to this controversy. Having never received a reply, I finally went to Mitchell Communications' website. No surprises: Its clients include both Crystal Bridges and Wal-Mart, the big-box giant to which Alice Walton owes her fortune.

Here are some Jock Reynolds quotes from the AP article, with my own rejoinders:

Saul Cohen [president of the O'Keeffe Museum] is fantasizing about what he thinks O'Keeffe wanted. [Actually, what the artist who donated the Stieglitz Collection to Fisk wanted is clearly spelled out in her written stipulations to Fisk.]

At least a partnership of sharing the collection and keeping it intact is more desirable...than to just break it up and sell things off. [I don't favor either course of action, but I think it's arguable whether the scuttled agreement with the O'Keeffe Museum, which would have removed TWO highly important paintings from the 101-work collection (with one to be occasionally lent back), is any worse than the Fisk-Walton deal, which would remove ALL the paintings from Fisk for half of the time.]

Reynolds' assessment of the O'Keeffe Museum's officials: They're the most hypocritical bunch of looters I've ever run across.

Opportunists, who thought they saw a chance to nab a masterpiece, O'Keeffe's "Radiator Building," for the bargain price of $7.5 million? Probably.

Hypocritical, in setting themselves up as defenders of O'Keeffe's interests when they're really out to further their own? Quite possibly.

But "looters"? They're not exactly prying a painting off the wall in the dead of night. The fate of the Stieglitz Collection will be decided, eventually, in a court of law.

October 24, 2007 1:26 PM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on October 24, 2007 1:26 PM.

Celebrity Watch: Clooney and Roberts at the Met; Bellows in Beverly Hills was the previous entry in this blog.

What's the Scariest Thing About the Shark at the Met? is the next entry in this blog.

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