The O’Keeffe museum, which had a deal with Fisk last spring to buy the two paintings at a fire sale price but was rebuffed by Judge Lyle, is now seeking outright return of the entire collection. It contends Fisk has violated the terms of the gift by not exhibiting and caring for the collection as agreed upon with O’Keeffe. Fisk has declared that it is not in the “museum” business and has told the court it cannot afford to comply with the terms of O’Keeffe’s gift and wants to sell parts of the collection to save the school.

“The record establishes that Ms. O’Keeffe’s intent was specific,” Judge Lyle said, in a ruling she said she issued with “ … great reluctance...” “She (O’Keeffe) did not intend for Fisk to be able to dispose of the collection in whole or in part,” Judge Lyle wrote, basing her decision on correspondence between the school and O’Keeffe and New York law, which governs the gift since it was made by O’Keeffe while a resident of New York.

“The record further establishes as to specific intent that if presented with the current circumstances of the collection being sold by Fisk to solve its financial crisis, Ms. O’Keeffe intended for the collection to be returned to her (and since she is now deceased, her successor),” Lyle ruled. In doing so, she recognized what the museum community calls the “dead hand rule,” the ability of a person to control their estate long after their death by the written agreements made prior to expiring.

The ruling means Fisk cannot go forward with a deal struck last fall between Fisk and the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas to sell the museum half interest in the collection for $30 million cash and other considerations. “Fisk must find another alternative to its financial crisis,” the judge said.

Lyle said the deal with Crystal Bridges, run by Wal-Mart fortune heiress Alice Walton, “is too far afield” from O’Keeffe’s intent and “unlawfully dilutes” these “predominant intentions that motivated” O’Keeffe to give the school the collection.