Newport Beach’s Ritz Bar Strips Nudes From Walls

The paintings of naked women that hung for more than a decade in the dimmed light of the Ritz restaurant’s bar are now stacked haphazardly in a storage room, a banished symbol of old sensibilities.

Head chef Claude Koeberle said Monday that the increasing number of professional women who conduct business with clients over lunch found the “centerfold-like” paintings of buxom women, nude from the waist up, less than appetizing.

“We are a well-established, traditional restaurant and we want to evolve with time,” Koeberle said. “But I think the world has lost some of its sense of humor and flair.”

After a smattering of complaints, Hans Prager, owner of the restaurant on Newport Center Drive, and his wife, Charlene Prager, decided a month ago that the dozen paintings, each about three feet by two feet, had to go.

It was a hard choice, Charlene Prager said, to retire the paintings that had been part of the Ritz since the late 1970s, when it was located near the Newport Pier and attracted Hells Angels motorcycle riders.

“Those paintings were part of our past and we had a nostalgic feeling for them,” she said, noting that it took the couple a year to finally move the art. “But we were surprised at the reaction of our patrons after we took them down. We figured that some people would notice, but not that many.”

The paintings may be gone from the walls, but they have not vanished from memory.

Some customers believe that the exile to the storage room was a bit extreme.

“We liked them, but then again, we are not young ladies,” said Patti Walker, 71, of Irvine, who spent lunch at the restaurant Monday chatting with two other women her age. “I think it is all very silly. I have a nude in my bathroom.”

Another regular, Charles Thompson, sipped a drink and said he has already begun to miss the old look.

The owner “indicated that some of the women resented the nudes,” Thompson said. “But if you question the men, they enjoyed them. And at my age of 70, they were a delight.”

Still, such sentiment is not universal.

“I can understand in these sensitive times why someone would be offended,” said Newport Beach City Councilwoman Janice A. Debay. “The nudes were always a part of the Ritz, but for somebody to go in there in this climate for the first time, they might be offended.”

In deference to those women--and a few men--who complained, Prager purchased a series of lithographs by French artist Guy Buffet depicting tuxedo-clad bartenders and waiters mixing various drinks.

But as Koeberle pointed out, the restaurant is not entirely bare of paintings showing the female form.

A dining area just off the bar is decorated with reproductions of perhaps more classic, voluptuous nudes by 17th-Century artist Peter Paul Rubens and 19th-Century French Impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir.

“We are not nudeless. We still have a roomful of them,” Koeberle said, adding that the removed pieces of art may be auctioned off.

Koeberle said the nude paintings had contributed to creating a bygone atmosphere before they were taken down. “It is sad, but I think it was the right decision.”