DENVER (AP) — President Donald Trump has demanded that his portrait in the Colorado state Capitol be taken down, saying he has received complaints about the image and claiming it was “purposefully distorted,” which prompted a steady stream of visitors to pose for photos with the painting on Monday.
The portrait was painted 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 by Sarah Boardman, who also produced the Capitol’s portrait of President Barack Obama.
Trump lauded Obama’s portrait, saying “he looks wonderful,” then suggested that the artist “lost her talent as she got older.”
In the 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.
“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.
Aaron Howe, visiting Colorado’s state Capitol from Wyoming on Monday, 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.”
Boardman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but the artist previously told The Denver Post when the portrait was unveiled that it was important that her depictions of both Obama and Trump look “apolitical.”
Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for Polis said in a statement that the governor 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,” Wieman continued.
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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.
