“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves,” said President Donald Trump this March regarding a portrait of himself hanging in the Colorado State Capitol. This week, a new one that the president does like took its place.
Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to have the first portrait, an oil painting, commissioned by artist Sarah Broadman. It was installed in 2019.
Trump said in his March post that Broadman “also did President Obama, and he looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst. She must have lost her talent as she got older.” He added that he would prefer to have no portrait than the Broadman one.
After he made the comments, the portrait was in fact taken down and a blank space was left there, according to the Associated Press. That recently changed when a portrait donated by the White House went up in the Capitol’s third floor gallery.
“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,” said Lois Court, a former state lawmaker who chairs the Capitol Building Advisory Committee, as quoted by the AP. It said the portrait was donated around a month ago.
According to a statement Colorado’s Capitol Building Advisory Committee provided to Fox News Digital, the painting is up as a temporary display, per a decision made at its committee meeting last week. That statement said it will also “consider the disposition of the full presidential portrait collection at a future meeting.”
“Thank you to the Highly Talented Artist, Vanessa Horabuena, and the incredible people of Colorado — Now on display in the Colorado State Capitol!” said Trump in a Tuesday Truth Social post about the painting.
This isn’t the first time that Horabuena, described as an “Christian worship artist” on her website, has painted Trump. Posts from her Facebook page show that her original painting of the president is hanging at the Doral National Golf resort – she said that Trump had used it as a screensaver on his phone.
“Pretty epic. Glad he likes it! Best President ever!” she said.
Horabuena also visited the White House to deliver a painting this May.
“I am so shocked at this experience. It was so surreal,” said the artist.