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Fisked Messages

By Intellectual Property Law, Esq.

A short piece in the Nashville Scene criticizes Fisk University for being in "denial" about its inability to sell the Stieglitz Collection:

"Oh, poor forgetful Fisk University. School officials there have spent the last two years begging the Davidson County Chancery Court to let them sell artwork from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection .... Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled last June that Fisk couldn?t pawn any of the works, explicitly outlining that the art 'was not given to Fisk to use as a source of revenue.' Fisk apparently didn?t get the memo. ... [T]hey asked Lyle yet again for the legal right to sell out?er, sell off the collection?this time to Wal-Mart heiress Alice L. Walton, who was hoping to showcase the art six months a year in her museum in podunk Arkansas. Last Friday, Lyle again told Fisk officials what they should?ve already known by now: They can?t sell the art."

As I mentioned yesterday, however, this overlooks the fact that in her September ruling rejecting a proposed settlement with the O'Keeffe Museum, Lyle practically ordered Fisk to make a deal with Walton's museum.

Full post as published by The Art Law Blog on February 14, 2008 (boomark / email).