NEWPORT BEACH : City to Put Painting Back on Display

City Manager Kevin J. Murphy decided Thursday to rehang an oil painting that was removed from a City Hall gallery this week after an employee complained that it was offensive.

The move came after the city’s Arts Commission passed a resolution Thursday morning in support of displaying the work, which depicts a family in the 1930s eating watermelon at the beach.

City officials said the work represented the artist’s recollections of a family outing at Seal Beach when she was a young girl. The artist is white. Figures in the painting have brownish skin.

A city employee told officials Wednesday that the painting was stereotypical and denigrated black people. Murphy said he knew of no other complaints about the work, which was one of 30 selected to appear in a new exhibit at City Hall.