The Nation - News from May 15, 1988

In newspaper ads addressed “To the Chicago Community,” the School of the Art Institute apologized for a student’s portrait of the late Mayor Harold Washington in lingerie. The student, David Nelson, depicted Washington in a bra, panties, garter and stockings. The painting was confiscated by police Wednesday when black aldermen said it disgraced the city’s first black mayor and threatened public order. “We do not approve of the method used by members of the City Council who entered a private space within the school and forcibly removed the painting from the wall, even though we recognize the intensity of feeling on the part of those aldermen in this situation,” the ad said.