It’s time for another one of my favorite gossip sub-genres: people arguing about art/portraiture and whether certain paintings of famous people are “good” or “insulting.” I still laugh whenever I think about that shockingly good “blood king” Jonathan Yeo painting of King Charles. I also love the completely haunting and soul-capturing Paul Emsley painting of the current Princess of Wales, even if Kate hated it and had it shuffled off to storage. Well, it looks like Donald Trump is bigly mad about a portrait which hangs in the Colorado State Capitol. The painting was done by Sarah Boardman. Boardman captured something, making him look particularly soft and frumpy, sort of like the “husky boy CEO” version of Trump. The real Trump is more jowly, ghoulish and foul-looking, so he should have taken this as a win. He has not.
President Donald Trump is calling for a portrait of him to be removed from a gallery almost six years after the artist unveiled it. On Sunday, March 23, Trump, 78, shared a photograph on Truth Social of the portrait by artist Sarah Boardman that hangs in the third-floor rotunda of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, in the Gallery of Presidents, per The Denver Post.
“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 artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.”
Trump claimed he’s not the only person who has found issues with the portrait since it was hung in 2019, and went on to call out Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
“In any event, I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one, but many people from Colorado have called and written to complain,” Trump continued. “In fact, they are actually angry about it! I am speaking on their behalf to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down. Jared should be ashamed of himself!” Trump concluded.
He didn’t explain why he suddenly decided to voice his opinions on the portrait despite it having initially been unveiled during his first stint in the White House.
What was striking about that asinine “accidentally putting the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief on the war-plan chat” story was that Trump’s national security team does not consult with him whatsoever, and they seemingly have free rein to just go off and do their wingnut sh-t and Trump isn’t paying attention. We knew that already, that Trump was just a mostly-absent, senile figurehead for all of these right-wing sh-theads. But it’s more pronounced right now – that Trump is just farting around all day, complaining about paintings and golfing while everyone in his administration busies themselves with dismantling the government, starting wars and crashing planes.
Photo of the portrait, courtesy of Trump’s Truth Social post. Additional photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
