LOS ANGELES — Ryan O’Neal told a jury Monday that he owns an Andy Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett and it was not a secret that he had removed the artwork from her home after her death.

“The painting is mine,” the Oscar-nominated actor testified during a lawsuit filed by the University of Texas at Austin to determine ownership of the portrait done in 1980.

The university claims Fawcett left the painting to the school as part of a donation of her artwork.

The artist created two versions of the portrait – one that currently remains over O’Neal’s bed at his Malibu beach house and another that is on display at the university’s Blanton Museum of Art in Austin.

Beck questioned O’Neal about a 1997 incident in which Fawcett caught O’Neal in bed with another woman. The lawyer has contended that changed the pair’s relationship and by the following year, the Warhol portrait that hung over O’Neal’s bed was moved to the home of the actress.

O’Neal said he asked Fawcett to take the portrait because it was making his new girlfriend uncomfortable. The portrait remained with Fawcett until her death in June 2009. She had one Warhol portrait in her living room and the other at her bedroom door.

After Fawcett’s death, O’Neal returned to the condominium and removed the portrait outside her bedroom.