The city has agreed to pay $95,000 to an artist whose painting of late Mayor Harold Washington in G-string and bra was removed from an art show by three aldermen.
The city also agreed to give police detailed instructions on when materials protected by the First Amendment may be seized, according to the settlement announced Tuesday.David Nelson's painting, titled "Mirth and Girth," depicted the city's first black mayor in a bra, G-string, garter belt and stockings. It was displayed in May 1988, months after Washington's death, as part of a private student exhibition at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Aldermen Allan Streeter, Dorothy Tillman and Bobby Rush seized the painting and the police superintendent then took it into custody. It was returned to Nelson the next day after repeated demands by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The aldermen claimed they wanted to save the painting from mob destruction and prevent it from inciting riots.
They agreed not to appeal a federal court's ruling that they had violated Nelson's rights.
One of the aldermen, Rush, is now a congressman.