DENVER — A portrait of President Donald hanging at the Colorado state Capitol will be taken down after Trump claimed it was “purposefully distorted,” state officials said Monday.
House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be taken down at the request of Republican leaders in the Legislature.
“If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” the Democrats said.
The portrait was painted by artist Sarah Boardman during Trump’s first term and unveiled in 2019. Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting.
In a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol. The Republican lauded a nearby portrait of former President Barack Obama – also by Boardman – saying “he looks wonderful.”
“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 wrote.
The portraits are not the purview of the Colorado governor’s office, but the Colorado Building Advisory Committee.
Boardman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. She previously told The Denver Post that it was important her depictions of both Obama and Trump looked “apolitical.”
Trump’s comments had prompted a steady stream of visitors to pose for photos with the painting before the announcement that it would be taken down.
Aaron Howe, visiting from Wyoming, stood in front of Trump’s portrait, looking down at photos of the president on his phone, then back up at the portrait.
“Honestly he looks a little chubby,” said Howe of the portrait, but “better than I could do.”
“I don’t know anything about the artist,” said Howe, who voted for Trump. “It could be taken one way or the other.”
Kaylee Williamson, an 18-year-old Trump supporter from Arkansas, got a photo with the portrait.
“I think it looks like him. I guess he’s smoother than all the other ones,” she said. “I think it’s fine.”
Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
