Judge bars Fisk’s sale of paintings

Fisk University cannot sell any of the 101 works of art -- some worth millions of dollars -- donated by Georgia O’Keeffe in 1949, a judge in Tennessee has ruled.

Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ordered the Nashville university this week not to sell any of the works in the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, noting they were donated to be used for art education.

The collection, compiled by the artist’s photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz, includes works by Picasso, Cezanne, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec as well as two O’Keeffes.

Fisk has been fighting a legal battle with O’Keeffe’s estate since 2005 over whether it could sell two works -- O’Keeffe’s “Radiator Building -- Night, New York” and Marsden Hartley’s “Painting No. 3.” The university is trying to raise funds to replenish its endowment.