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.
