Alice in "I Wonder" Land

As in — I wonder how long it will be before Alice Walton has her way with the Stieglitz Collection at Fisk University? Actually, while we've been talking about 9/11 this week, there's been movement on two Walton-related artworld dramas.

One of them involves Walton and Fisk. Earlier this week a Tennessee judge disallowed a deal worked out between Fisk — usually known here at "Looking Around" as "Financially Troubled Fisk" — and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. As you'll recall, the deal would have allowed the museum to purchase O'Keeffe's Radiator Building — Night, New York from Fisk for the bargain price of $7.5 million. Fisk wanted to sell the painting on the open market, where it could be counted on to fetch much more than $7.5 million. But the O'Keeffe Museum, as handler of the artist's estate, brought suit against Fisk to prevent the sale, then suggested, ahem, that Fisk sell the painting to them at that bargain price.

That was the deal Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle disallowed, pointing out that there was a better deal being proposed by the very acquisitive Wal-Mart heiress Walton, who surprised absolutely nobody a few weeks ago when she stepped forward. Walton has offered $30 million if she can have a 50% share in all 101 works in the Stieglitz collection, with the art being shuttled back and forth on an equal time basis between Fisk and Walton's forthcoming Crystal Bridges Museum in Benton, Ark.

Museum directors I've spoken with tell me that earlier in the game they were advising Fisk to seek out a sharing arrangement as an alternative to selling any of its works. But finding a partner museum with deep enough pockets is no easy job. Now that the Fisk-O'Keeffe Museum deal is scuttled — and the Museum has withdrawn its lawsuit — Ms. Walton, and her very deep pockets, has a has a very clear path.

And in other Walton-related news, 11 people filed suit in a Virginia court earlier this week to prevent Randolph College — generally known here at "Looking Around" as "Financially Troubled Randolph" — from selling works from its Maier Museum. One of the plaintiffs in the suit is former Randolph art professor Laura Katzman, who I talked to about the Maier last week. As you'll recall, the Maier is another campus museum that Walton is reported to have set her sites on.