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Three overseers of the Rose Art Museum filed a lawsuit on Monday in state court in Massachusetts, seeking to halt Brandeis University's plans to close the museum and clear the way to sell some of its works, which include pieces by Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Ellsworth Kelly. The university's trustees voted in January to close the museum and sell the works, collectively estimated to be worth a total in the area of $350 million, as a way to help the university contend with an endowment that has been seriously diminished during the financial crisis. Brandeis later backtracked, saying that no works would be sold in the immediate future and that the building would remain open as an art study center, though not as a public museum. In their suit the overseers -- Jonathan O. Lee, Lois Foster and Meryl Rose, a member of the family whose donations created the museum in 1961 -- contend that Brandeis's plans to close the museum ''contradict the charitable intentions'' of the museum's founders, ''abrogate Brandeis's promises that the Rose would be maintained in perpetuity'' as a modern and contemporary art museum, and violate its commitments to those who donated art to the museum. In a statement, attorneys for the university called the lawsuit frivolous and without merit, arguing that the Rose's endowment is part of the larger Brandeis endowment, and that the university is focused first and foremost on ''providing its students with a first class education and ensuring that Brandeis continues to provide financial assistance to needy students.'' This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Massachusetts attorney general's office said on Tuesday that it planned to conduct a detailed review of Brandeis University's surprise decision to sell off the entire holdings of its Rose Art Museum, one of the most important collections of postwar art in New England. The decision to close the 48-year-old museum in Waltham, Mass., and disperse the collection as a way to shore up the university's struggling finances was denounced by the museum's board, its director and a wide range of art experts, who warned that the university was cannibalizing its cultural heritage to pay its bills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]