A presidential portrait with Donald Trump’s approval now hangs in the Colorado Capitol after his complaints got a previous one of him taken down.
The new portrait by Tempe, Arizona, artist Vanessa Horabuena is a sterner, crisper image than Sarah Boardman’s painting of Trump that had hung since 2019.
Last spring, Trump posted on social media that Boardman “must have lost her talent as she got older” and “purposely distorted” him, criticisms the Colorado Springs artist denied.
The next day, lawmakers announced they would remove the portrait from a wall of past presidents. By the day after that, Boardman’s painting was gone, put into museum storage.
The Horabuena portrait donated by the White House a month or so ago went up this week after a Thursday decision by Lois Court, a former state lawmaker who chairs the Capitol Building Advisory Committee that helps select artwork for the Capitol in downtown Denver.
“There was a blank on the wall. It seemed inappropriate. We knew that the White House had sent us this replacement and it simply made sense to put it up,” Court said.
The White House donated the Horabuena portrait a month or so ago, said Court.
Horabuena is a “Christian worship artist” who has done several other depictions of Trump as well as Abraham Lincoln, Mount Rushmore and Jesus Christ, according to her website.
On Tuesday, the Colorado statehouse was sleepy with lawmakers out of session and no schoolchildren visiting the historic building. A smattering of tourists took photos of the new portrait.
Horabuena did not return a phone message Tuesday seeking comment.
“Thank you to the Highly Talented Artist, Vanessa Horabuena, and the incredible people of Colorado,” Trump posted Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The portrait and others of past presidents might not remain up for long. The advisory committee is considering whether to replace them with portraits of past governors to mark the 150th anniversary of Colorado statehood next year.
___
AP videojournalist Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.