DENVER — A portrait of President Donald Trump commissioned by Colorado Republicans that hangs at the Colorado State Capitol will be taken down after sundown following the president’s claim over the weekend that the painting was “purposefully distorted.”
“Republican leadership asked for it to be taken down,” said Colorado House Democrats spokesman Jarrett Freedman, arguing Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran were focused on more important matters than presidential portraits. “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 portrait became the latest disillusionment for Trump, who called it “truly the worst” as he lambasted artist Sarah Boardman and Gov. Jared Polis in a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform.
“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, as he lauded the painting next to his, which depicts former President Barack Obama, saying “he looks wonderful.”
The portrait, however, was not put up by Gov. Polis, as Trump claimed, but was commissioned in 2019 by Senate Republicans months before Polis was even elected governor.
Furthermore, the portraits are not the purview of the Colorado governor’s office, but the Colorado Building Advisory Committee, according to The Associated Press.
Before Trump’s portrait graced the walls of the Colorado Capitol, a prankster placed a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin beneath the spot reserved for Trump’s portrait.
'Pressure in every direction'
Back in 2019, Denver7 spoke to Broadman, the artist behind Trump's and Obama's portraits at the State Capitol. She told us about the pressure that falls on the artist of a presidential portrait.
“It’s an enormous step in a portrait painter’s life,” she said. “There’s pressure in every direction. I get pressured to painting this certain style from one group of people and a different style from someone else because it’s a political thing.”
Broadman told us she went through thousands of photos of Trump to pick the right one to paint, and the approval process took weeks.
She said she didn't want the portrait to be a political statement.
“At the door of my studio I tried to leave any politics behind," she said. "I paint the essence of a human being. That’s what I do."
- Watch our full story with Broadman from 2019 in the video player below:
Denver7 Digital Director Landon Haaf contributed to this report.
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