Fisk University wants to sell Georgia O'Keeffe's Radiator Building -- Night, New York along with other works or a 50 per cent share in the collection she donated to the school. (Fisk University/Associated Press)

A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum has no rights and no say over the art collection the American painter donated to Nashville's Fisk University.

The Tennessee Court of Appeal said in a ruling Tuesday that any right the artist had to most of the 101 works she donated to school ended with her death in 1986.

The O'Keeffe Museum, which is located in Santa Fe, N.M., represents the artist's estate and has repeatedly objected to Fisk University's plans to sell several prominent works or half its stake in the entire collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas for $30 million US.

The school, which has struggled financially for years, first requested permission to sell some works, including O'Keeffe's famed 1927 oil painting Radiator Building — Night, New York, in 2007.

According to the O'Keeffe Museum, these sales would defy the terms of the artist's bequest, including that the collection remain intact.

A Fisk attorney said earlier this year that the artworks, known as the Alfred Stieglitz Collection, is valued at about $75 million US.

Out of the 101 works (which include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne and Diego Rivera), 97 had come from the collection of O'Keeffe's late husband Alfred Stieglitz, an art collector and photographer.

O'Keeffe made the donation to the traditionally African-American university in 1949, while executing her late husband's will. She subsequently added Radiator Building and three additional works to her overall gift.

With files from The Associated Press