President Donald Trump recently called a portrait of him hanging in the Colorado state capitol in Denver “distorted” and said that it should be taken down.
The president claimed that the image was “truly the worst” in a lengthy, rambling post on Truth Social on March 23.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one.”
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Colorado Springs artist Sarah A. Boardman also painted the presidential portrait of President Barack Obama, which Trump said “looks wonderful. Then he followed with: “She must have lost her talent as she got older.”
President Trump’s post, which also mentioned the name of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, said that “many people” from Colorado have called and written to complain about the portrait, and that he was speaking on their behalf to the state’s governor to take it down.
Trump’s portrait in the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Courtesy of President Trump’s Truth Social page.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office told Denver news outlet 9News that Governor Jared Polis was “surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork. … We appreciate the President and everyone’s interest in our capitol building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience.”
The portrait was not commissioned by Polis. Former senate president Kevin Grantham raised nearly $11,000 through an online fundraising campaign on GoFundMe on behalf of the group “Colorado Citizens for Culture” (CCC) to pay for the portrait. CCC is a network fostered by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts (CBCA).
Prior to the fundraising campaign, CCC’s president Jay Seller said in 2018 that no private donations had been made for the cost of commissioning the portrait of Trump.
However, in July of that year, a member of a nonprofit progressive advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado snuck into the Colorado state capitol and displayed a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin on an easel in the empty location where Trump’s portrait was expected to hang. “We hope that public awareness has been raised over the danger of Russian influence over the President of the United States,” Ian Silverii, the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, told 9News.
The incident angered Republics, drew national and international news attention, and raised attention to the absence of an official presidential portrait of Trump. Grantham’s GoFundMe was able to meet its goal within 32 hours, with donations from several state Republicans, according to a report by Time.
Notably, all 43 of the presidential portraits prior to Obama and Trump had been painted by the artist Lawrence Williams, who died in 2003.
At the unveiling of the portrait at a ceremony in August 2019, Boardman said she aimed to match Williams’s style and that the painting took four months to complete.
Boardman also explained how she chose the image of Trump, which was approved by the Capitol Building Advisory Committee: “My portrait of President Trump has been called thoughtful, non-confrontational, not angry, not happy, not tweeting. In five, 10, 15, 20 years, he will be another president on the wall who is only historical background and he needs to look neutral.”