President Donald Trump has taken aim at a portrait of himself hanging in Colorado’s Capitol. He’s demanding that it be taken down.
Unveiled in 2019, the portrait was painted in oil by the Colorado-based artist Sarah Boardman, the New York Times reported. It depicts the president in a dark suit and red tie.
It hangs in the Gallery of Presidents in the Colorado State Capitol building’s rotunda.
“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 said in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday, the Times reported. “The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst.”
Trump said in the post that many people in Colorado had called and written to complain, and attached a photograph of the portrait, which appears to soften the president’s features, according to the Times.
He also declared the artist “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
In the Truth Social post, he also called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, “extremely weak on crime.”
In a statement, Polis said he appreciated Trump’s interest and was surprised the president was an “aficionado” of the building and its artwork. The statement made no reference to whether the painting would be removed.
Boardman won a competition to paint the portraits of former President Barack Obama and Trump that hang in the State Capitol in Denver, the Times said.
Former state Senate President Kevin Grantham, a Republican, raised $11,000 through an online campaign to fund the project, The Denver Post reported.
When the portrait of Trump was unveiled in 2019, Boardman told The Denver Post it was important to her to make paintings appear apolitical, according to the Times.
“I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one,” Trump wrote, asking that Polis “take it down,” the Post said.
