We’re late on this but the story is almost too good not to cover. It would seem that no one can make up their minds in the case of Fisk University’s Steiglitz collection which had been slated to go to Arkansas’s Crystal Bridges Museum as part of sharing program that would pay for its upkeep which the school can no longer afford. Now the judge in the case, Ellen Hobbs Lyle, has blind-sided local authorities who worked out a plan to have the collection cared for by another institution until Fisk could regain its financial footing:

Lyle, who will decide next month whether Fisk will be allowed to sell a share in its prized Stieglitz Collection, said Attorney General Bob Cooper had not come up with a plan that provided a “long-term solution to keep the collection in Nashville full-time.” As a result, she said, her only alternative was to consider Fisk’s petition for permission to sell a $30 million share in its art collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.

Cooper had proposed removing the art from Fisk and turning the collection over to the Tennessee Arts Council. The $74 million collection, donated to Fisk by artist Georgia O’Keeffe, would have been displayed at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts until such time as Fisk was able to bear the expense of its upkeep.But in a ruling filed in Nashville Chancery Court this afternoon, Lyle wrote: “The best the attorney general has been able to do is to propose a short-term solution. A temporary fix, however, is insufficient, the court concludes. The parties have been in court long enough. Finality and certainty is needed.”

Judge Rejects AG’s Plans for Fisk Art (Tennesean)