
Trump portrait in Colorado Capitol removed after president’s complaint
The portrait of President Donald Trump hanging in the Colorado Capitol was removed Monday, following Trump’s complaint on social media that the painting is “purposefully distorted.”
Party leadership in both the House and Senate directed the removal in a letter on Monday afternoon.
The painting will be taken down after the building closes and stored with History Colorado, officials said. It is considered part of the historical collection of the state.

President Donald Trump. Courtesy Voice of America.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform Sunday night to criticize the painting, which is displayed on the third floor alongside portraits of every United States president. He said he would prefer having no portrait in the Capitol than the one painted by Sarah Boardman during his first term. Colorado Republicans raised $10,000 through GoFundMe to commission the painting.
“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, calling on Democratic Governor Jared Polis to take the portrait down.
Art in the Capitol is not the purview of the governor’s office. The Colorado Building Advisory Committee is in charge of maintaining the collection.
The portraits of President Ronald Reagan through President George W. Bush in the Capitol were painted by Laurence Williams. After his death, the building advisory committee tapped Boardman to take over. She painted former President Barack Obama and Trump’s portraits. Kirsten Savage painted President Joe Biden’s portrait.
Fundraising to pay for the portraits was historically done by the relevant president’s political party, but the committee decided in 2022 that some of its funding could be used for the portraits to avoid delays.
Republican leadership in the Legislature asked for the Trump painting to come down.
“The Speaker and Majority Leader are focused on keeping Coloradans safe and reducing costs, not hanging portraits. If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” Jarrett Freedman, the communications director for House Democrats, said in a statement.
Members of state GOP leadership were not immediately available for comment. Democrats hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature.
The House spent most of Monday debating the final passage of Senate Bill 25-3, a bill that would require safety training for people to buy semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines. The Senate spent Monday debating another pair of gun bills, one on the age to purchase ammunition and another to put more regulations on gun shows.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, said the portrait removal was made to “honor pre-existing tradition.”
“President Grover Cleveland only received one portrait that depicts him during his second term. In keeping with this precedent, I requested for the portrait of President Trump be taken down and replaced with a new one that depicts his contemporary likeness,” he said in a statement.