This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.com.
A portrait of Donald Trump donated by the White House will hang temporarily on a wall in the Colorado Capitol, replacing a painting commissioned during his first term in office that he called “truly the worst” and “purposefully distorted.”
The decision was made unilaterally Thursday by former state Sen. Lois Court, a Denver Democrat and chair of the Colorado Capitol Building Advisory Committee. The panel oversees historic preservation at the Colorado Capitol.
The donated painting was created by Vanessa Horabuena of Tempe, Arizona. It appears to be a painting of Trump’s official photograph.
“It is currently being framed,” Court said Thursday of the White House painting.
Court said her decision was made in consultation with the two elected members of the committee — Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, and Rep. William Lindstedt, D-Broomfield. But the committee didn’t vote on the decision. Court simply announced it.
Court didn’t say for how long the donated portrait would be displayed, but the Colorado Capitol Building Advisory Committee is set to revisit the issue in September.
“In due time, we will have a thorough discussion about all the presidential portraits,” she said.
The Capitol Building Advisory Committee had been discussing whether to replace the presidential portraits hanging in the building’s third-floor rotunda with paintings of the state’s former governors. The idea was floated at the panel’s meeting last month in response to the controversy earlier this year that followed Trump’s complaints about how he looked in his Colorado Capitol portrait.
The painting was removed in March in response to the president’s griping and there’s currently an awkward blank space in the rotunda above a placard marking Trump’s White House terms.
The original portrait, unveiled in August 2019, was paid for by donors after Republicans launched a fundraising campaign. It was painted by Sarah Boardman, who said Trump’s complaints — which began in March — have damaged her career.
Boardman said the situation is “directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years, which now is in danger of not recovering.”
Colorado Capitol Alliance
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
