A long-running dispute over a valuable art collection once owned by U.S. painter Georgia O'Keeffe has moved into a Nashville courtroom.

Fisk University's collection includes Georgia O'Keeffe's 1927 painting Radiator Building — Night, New York.
(Fisk University/Associated Press)

The battle revolves around Fisk University's 101-piece collection of U.S. and European art that includes O'Keeffe's famed painting Radiator Building — Night, New York as well as works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M., which represents the artist's estate, is suing the Nashville school over its attempt to sell individual works or a stake in the collection.

In 1949, O'Keeffe divided her late photographer husband Alfred Stieglitz's nearly 1,000-piece art collection among six different institutions, including Nashville's Fisk University, a predominantly black school founded in 1866 that has perennially suffered from funding shortfalls.

O'Keeffe Museum officials claim that Fisk's attempts to sell off portions of the collection violate its agreement with the artist to keep the works intact and on display for students. They argue that because of this, the school should forfeit the collection.

On Tuesday, the opening day of the trial, museum lawyers introduced a range of documents, including those citing the school's lending of pieces from the collection for travelling exhibitions as well as correspondence between O'Keeffe and past presidents about Fisk's longtime struggles with finding sufficient funding to properly display and maintain the artwork.

Georgia O'Keeffe, captured in this 1931 image by her husband Alfred Stieglitz, at one point wondered whether she should withdraw her collection from Fisk University, according to a letter read in court.
(Metropolitan Museum of Art/Vancouver Art Gallery)

In one letter read into court records, the painter even wondered whether she should withdraw her gift.

Fisk has vowed to fight to keep the collection, and lawyers for the school have argued it did not violate the terms of the deal with O'Keeffe because the school sought permission from the courts prior to any sale attempt.

Though the trial is not expected to extend past this week, a decision by Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle could take several weeks.

Earlier this month, Lyle struck down a Fisk proposal to sell half its share of the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton of the Wal-Mart retail family.

Fisk had proposed the collection spend time both in its own Carl Van Vechten Gallery as well as at Crystal Bridges, located in Arkansas.

With files from the Associated Press