(AFP) – Colorado state has pledged to remove a portrait of Donald Trump from public display after the US president complained that it was deliberately unflattering. “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,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The president suggested that British-born artist Sarah Boardman “must have lost her talent as she got older.” “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Trump said.
The 78-year-old Republican urged Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis to take down the oil painting, which has been hung in the capitol’s rotunda in Denver since 2019. The request was quickly granted. The Democrat-controlled state legislature said Monday that the painting would be moved from the gallery on the third floor and placed in storage.
“If the Republican party wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” said Jarrett Freedman, communications director for House Democrats.
Trump has no shortage of portraits. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently commissioned a portrait of the US leader and presented it to Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff during their meeting in Moscow, as the two countries seek to improve ties amid negotiations on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In an interview on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Witkoff said that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful.”
© 2024 AFP
