'Purposefully distorted' picture in Colorado taken down at president's request, as Kremlin confirms it has gifted him a new painting
A painting of Donald Trump hanging with other presidential portraits in Colarado will be taken down after the US president claimed that his was “purposefully distorted”.
British-born artist Sarah Boardman, who now lives in Colorado Springs, painted the portrait in 2019.
Trump had described a portrait of former US president Barack Obama, also by Boardman, as “wonderful” but said: “the one on me is truly the worst”.
“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,” he wrote on his TruthSocial platform.
House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be taken down at the request of Republican leaders in the legislature.
Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting, which was unveiled in 2019.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, said that he requested for Trump’s portrait to be taken down and replaced by one “that depicts his contemporary likeness.”
“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 Democrats said.
Initially, people objected to artist Sarah Boardman’s depiction of Trump as “nonconfrontational” and “thoughtful” in the portrait, according to an interview with Colorado Times Recorder from the time.
Boardman has not commented on the latest developments, but in interviews from the time with The Denver Post, she said it was important that her depictions of both Obama and Trump looked apolitical.
“There will always be dissent, so pleasing one group will always inflame another. I consider a neutrally thoughtful, and nonconfrontational, portrait allows everyone to reach their own conclusions in their own time,” she told the Colorado Times Recorder in 2019.
It came as the Kremlin confirmed that Vladimir Putin had gifted Trump a new portrait, which the president is said to have described as “beautiful”.
The Russian leader gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful.”
During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the US presidency had been shot at a rally in Pennsylvania.
In 2018, Putin gave then-President Trump a soccer ball that the Secret Service had checked for listening devices before Trump gave it to his son — a precaution that hearkened back to a Soviet-era gift to a US diplomat that turned out to be bugged.
It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs. The White House has not commented on the portrait.
Trump is not the first sitting president to receive a gift from Putin.
In 2021, the Russian leader gave then-President Joe Biden a $12,000 lacquer writing box and pen when they met at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2013, he reportedly sent then-President Barack Obama porcelain plates and espresso cups.
In 2014, the Russia president reportedly sent to George H.W. Bush a portrait of the former president on his 90th birthday.
_With agencies_