President Trump has criticized a portrait painted during his first term that is hanging in the Colorado State Capitol, and demanded that the state’s governor take it down.
The portrait, painted in oil by the Colorado-based artist Sarah Boardman and unveiled in 2019, features the president in a dark suit and red tie. It hangs in the Gallery of Presidents in the 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,” Mr. Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network on Sunday.
“The artist also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” Mr. Trump went on. He added 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.
In the post, he also insulted Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, a Democrat, calling him “extremely weak on Crime,” and said the artist “must have lost her talent as she got older.”
In a statement, Mr. Polis said that he appreciated Mr. Trump’s interest and was surprised that the president was an “aficionado” of the building and its artwork. The statement made no reference to whether the painting would be removed.
There was no immediate comment from the artist, Ms. Boardman, who lists the portrait on her website as one of her works.
According to the website, she won a competition to paint the portraits of former President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump that hang in the State Capitol in Denver.
When the portrait of Mr. Trump was unveiled in 2019, Ms. Boardman told The Denver Post that it was important to her to make paintings appear apolitical.
