A new, White House-approved portrait of President Donald Trump will soon hang in the Colorado State Capitol.
The new portrait bears a close resemblance to Trump’s official photograph for his second term in office, albeit with him wearing a blue tie in the painting versus a red one in the photo. The painting casts Trump against a black background instead of the textured brown and black in the portraits of his predecessors.
Colorado’s legislative leadership has agreed to display Trump’s new portrait temporarily while officials discuss the future of the Capitol’s presidential portrait gallery. On Thursday, former Sen. Lois Court, the chair of the Capitol Building Advisory Committee, said the group “will have a thorough discussion of all the presidential portraits at our next meeting” in September.
The White House donated the portrait after Trump objected to a prior painting that had been on display since 2019.
“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 on his social media platform, Truth Social, in March.
Colorado Senate Republicans raised $11,000 in 2019 to commission the original portrait of Trump. Colorado Springs artist Sarah Boardman painted that image, as well as the one for former President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
Boardman said then that she strove to make both paintings apolitical. Former Senate President Kevin Grantham, who led the fundraiser, recalled in March that the portrait’s unveiling was “nothing but smiles and applause and support for the artist and her work.”
Legislative leadership took down the portrait the day after Trump’s criticisms. Boardman said in April that Trump’s accusations were “directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years which now is in danger of not recovering.”
The new portrait was painted by Vanessa Horabuena of Tempe, Arizona. Horabuena’s website describes her as a “Christian worship artist” and features patriotic and religious works.
History Colorado framed the new portrait Thursday ahead of it going on display and said in the late afternoon that it had been returned to Capitol building staff. The portrait will be displayed in the third-floor rotunda of the state Capitol, but there was no firm timeline Thursday afternoon for when it would go up.
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