TIPTON — The mayor of an eastern Iowa city wants a downtown art gallery to remove a painting of a partially nude woman from the gallery’s front window. Hugh Stumbo owns the gallery in Tipton, a city of about 3,200 people. Stumbo said he expected some complaints about his painting, but he was surprised when the police chief told him the mayor wanted the painting relocated inside the gallery. Stumbo says the chief acknowledged there was no city ordinance requiring him to move the artwork.
Mayor Shirley Kepford says people have told her “this was not the kind of art they wanted to see, and right down on Main Street where everybody walks by.”