A portrait of Donald Trump that has hung in the Colorado Capitol Rotunda since 2019 was removed by state legislators after the president lambasted the work on Sunday, March 23.
The president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the painting was “purposefully distorted” and “truly the worst,” and called upon the state’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, to remove the artwork. On Monday, the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, a bipartisan group that maintains authority over the building’s presidential portrait display, unanimously ordered the removal of the painting.
The 24-by-20-inch likeness was completed by British artist Sarah Boardman in 2019 after she won a national artist open call for a permanent official portrait of Trump to hang in the state’s capitol. Local Republicans fundraised to commission the piece. Boardman, who trained in Germany in the techniques of Old Masters painters, according to her website, also painted a portrait of Obama for the Colorado Capitol in 2011.
Boardman has not responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment and has not yet publicly spoken about Trump’s criticism of her work.
Trump’s facial features are noticeably softer in Boardman’s contested interpretation compared to the reference photo she chose, in which the president stares at the camera with a signature scowl, the corner of his right lip turned down. In a 2018 interview, Boardman said she chose the photo because Trump bore a “serious, non-confrontational, thoughtful” expression and explained that she strove for neutrality in her work.
In his recent social media post, Trump praised Boardman’s portrait of Obama, whose features also appear muted, and remarked that Boardman “must have lost her talent as she got older.” Trump’s criticism of the nearly six-year-old portrait came one day before Russia’s Kremlin confirmed that President Vladimir Putin has gifted a portrait to Trump.
In a Monday directive reviewed by Hyperallergic, the executive committee’s four Democratic and two Republican members ordered staff to “immediately remove the portrait of President Donald Trump from its current display,” but did not cite a reason. That order was carried out before the Rotunda was opened to the public on Tuesday, March 25, Natalie Castle, director of the Colorado Legislative Council Staff, told Hyperallergic. The directive also remands the painting to storage in a “secure and appropriate location” until further notice.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic that he originally asked for the portrait to be taken down to honor “pre-existing tradition.”
Lundeen said that President Grover Cleveland — who served two nonconsecutive terms between 1885 and 1897 — was represented by a portrait painted during his second term and not his first.
“In keeping with this precedent, I requested for the portrait of President Trump be taken down and replaced with a new one that depicts his contemporary likeness,” Lundeen said.
However, Boardman’s portrait of Obama, which remains in place according to photos taken of the presidential gallery following the removal of the Trump-detested work, was hung during his first term, in May 2011.
Colorado Senate Democrats have not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.
Castle said that any replacement portrait would have to be approved “pursuant to a process in state law,” and that no proposal has been submitted yet.
“The Presidential portraits in the Rotunda have in the past, and will in the future, elicit a wide variety of responses,” Boardman said in a 2019 interview with the Colorado Times Recorder, which was republished by the newspaper this week in light of recent developments. “This is always subjective and based on the personal filter of each individual viewer.”