NEWPORT BEACH : Panel to Take Up Artwork Complaint

The city’s Art Commission this morning will discuss an oil painting that was abruptly removed from a City Hall exhibit Wednesday after an employee complained that it was offensive.

The painting, one of 30 put on display this week at the city’s gallery, depicts a family in the 1930s sitting on a beach and eating watermelon.

City Manager Kevin Murphy said he removed the painting after a city worker complained that it was stereotypical and demeaning to blacks. The figures in the work have brownish skin, but city officials said they didn’t know whether the artist intended them to be white or black.

Exhibition organizers and art commissioners who viewed the painting said they assumed the family was white.

Murphy said the painting will remain out of the exhibit until he further investigates the issue. “We don’t want to do anything (counter to) promoting harmonious relations among ethnic groups.”