DENVER — President Donald Trump took to social media Sunday night to complain about what he called a “distorted” portrait of himself hanging in the Colorado State Capitol’s Gallery of Presidents.
“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 in his post on Truth Social.
The portrait, commissioned during Trump’s first term, was paid for with a Republican-led fundraising effort and approved by Colorado Republicans before it was put on display in 2019.
Former state Senate President Kevin Grantham, a Republican, raised nearly $11,000 in an online fundraiser for the portrait in the summer of 2018 after he learned no donations had been received to fund the painting more than a year into Trump’s first term.
The unveiling of the portrait on Aug. 1, 2019 — at an event hosted by the Colorado Senate Republicans and artist Sarah Boardman of Colorado Springs — was described as nonpartisan by organizers.
“I would much prefer not having a picture than having this one,” Trump wrote, asking that Gov. Jared Polis “take it down.”
