High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Mirth Girth is a portrait painting by School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) student David K. Nelson, Jr, in response to what the artist described as the deification of the popular African-American mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, after his sudden death on November 25, 1987 due to a heart attack. The painting depicted Washington wearing only a bra, G-string, garter belt and stockings. After a brief showing at a May 11, 1988 private student exhibition in the Art Institute, angry African-American aldermen arrived with Chicago Police Department officers and confiscated the painting, triggering a First Amendment and race relations crisis.