An official portrait of Donald Trump has been removed from the Colorado Capitol building following social media complaints from the president claiming his likeness had been “purposefully distorted”.
The General Assembly’s bipartisan executive committee signed a directive empowering staff to take the painting down on the evening of 24 March, according to the Denver Post. The portrait, completed by the Colorado Springs-based artist Sarah Boardman in 2019, was commissioned during Trump’s first term. The commission resulted from an online fundraising effort spearheaded by the former president of the state senate, Republican Kevin Grantham, after he learned that no donations had been received to create an official Trump portrait for the seat of the state government in Denver.
In a 23 March post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “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.” He added that he would “much prefer not having a picture than having this one”. The post, directed at Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis, called for the portrait’s swift removal and suggested that Boardman “must have lost her talent as she got older”, given that her portrait of President Barack Obama was “wonderful”.
The other presidential portraits at the Colorado Capitol were painted by Lawrence Williams, who died before he could paint Obama or Trump. The August 2019 unveiling of Broadman’s portrait of Trump was described by attendees as “nonpartisan”, and Grantham characterised the event as “nothing but smiles”, telling the Denver Post that Trump’s recent criticism “caught [him] a little off guard”, although he stated that in light of Trump’s displeasure it would be “silly” to keep the painting on view.
“There are all sorts of personalities, parties, issues and views represented by those presidents, but those factors are not relevant as to whether or not their portrait hangs in that gallery,” Boardman told the Colorado Times Recorder in 2019.
“Governor Polis was surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork,” Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for the governor, told Axios Denver, adding that the governor’s office is always on the hunt “for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience”.
Jarrett Freedman, a spokesperson for the Colorado House Democrats, said in a statement to NBC 9 News: “If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them.”
There is no timeline for the commissioning, creation and installation of a new Trump portrait to replace Boardman’s. Joshua Bly, a spokesperson for Colorado Senate Republicans, told the Associated Press: “We have no idea when a new portrait is going to go up, how it’s going to be fundraised, who is going to pay for it, who is going to paint it, etc.”
This is not the first portrait-based kerfuffle the Colorado Capitol has experienced in recent years. In 2018, after the organisation Colorado Citizens for Culture failed to raise funds for an official Trump portrait, an aide to a Democratic House Speaker helped activists from ProgressNow Colorado sneak into the Capitol and place a portrait of Vladimir Putin near where Trump’s likeness was supposed to hang. Grantham raised nearly $11,000 for Boardman’s portrait commission in the immediate aftermath of that prank.
Boardman, who has not spoken publicly about her painting’s removal, won a nationwide contest to paint the portraits of Obama and Trump. According to her website she was born in England and began her artistic studies in Germany in 1985. Most of her oeuvre consists of portraits, often portraying dogs or public officials, in a warm, realist style.
