{"id":22792,"date":"2025-04-07T18:18:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T00:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-artist-denies-trying-to-distort-trump-in-portrait\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:17:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:17:35","slug":"colorado-artist-denies-trying-to-distort-trump-in-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-artist-denies-trying-to-distort-trump-in-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado artist denies trying to distort Trump in portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sarah
Sarah A. Boardman at the unveiling of the portrait of Donald Trump that she painted that hangs at the Colorado Capitol on Aug. 1, 2019. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Colorado artist denies trying to distort Donald Trump\u2019s likeness in a portrait that hung until recently in the state Capitol and says the president\u2019s criticisms are hurting her business.<\/p>\n

She also disputed that the work drew a lot of complaints before Trump weighed in.<\/p>\n

Trump called the portrait<\/a> by Colorado Springs painter Sarah Boardman \u201cpurposefully distorted\u201d in a March 23 post on Truth Social. Trump added that Boardman \u201cmust have lost her talent as she got older\u201d and posted that he preferred having no portrait in the Colorado Capitol to that one.<\/p>\n

Legislative leaders announced the next day that they would take the portrait down. It was gone from a wall of past presidents\u2019 portraits the next morning, relegated to museum storage.<\/p>\n

In an emailed statement Saturday, Boardman denied intentionally distorting Trump.<\/p>\n

While Trump posted that \u201cmany people\u201d from Colorado had complained about the portrait, Boardman wrote she \u201cgot overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback\u201d over the six years it hung in the Capitol.<\/p>\n

\"The
The plaque that marked the placement of a portrait of President Donald Trump is all that remains after the picture, which was part of a display of all of the country's chief executives, was removed from the wall of the rotunda in the State Capitol following complaints about the likeness from Trump on March 25 in Denver. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

That has changed for the worse since Trump\u2019s comments, Boardman wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I \u2018purposefully distorted\u2019 the portrait, and that I \u2018must have lost my talent as I got older\u2019 are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years which now is in danger of not recovering.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Colorado Capitol advisory committee commissioned the portrait, approved the reference photo for the portrait and approved her work in progress, Boardman wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI completed the portrait accurately, without \u2018purposeful distortion,\u2019 political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied. I fulfilled the task per my contract,\u201d Boardman wrote.<\/p>\n

She would not be commenting further, Boardman concluded.<\/p>\n

Boardman also painted the portraits of former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the state Capitol. Trump posted that Obama \u201clooks wonderful\u201d in his portrait but that his own painting \u2013 paid for with $10,000 raised by Colorado Republicans \u2013 is \u201ctruly the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, has said that the Trump portrait should be replaced with one \u201cthat depicts his contemporary likeness.\u201d The process of commissioning a replacement has not yet begun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher
Christopher Nicklin, center, with friends Brandon Kramer, left, and Clint Denison, right, take a photo of the portrait of President Donald Trump hanging in the rotunda on the third floor of the Colorado State Capitol on March 24 in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson\/The Denver Post via AP)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A portrait of President Donald Trump hangs on a wall in the rotunda on the third floor of the Colorado Capitol on March 24 in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson\/The Denver Post via AP)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The plaque that marked the placement of a portrait of President Donald Trump is all that remains after the picture, which was part of a display of all of the country's chief executives, was removed from the wall of the rotunda in the State Capitol following complaints about the likeness from Trump on March 25 in Denver. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A man takes a photograph of the plaque that marked the placement of a portrait of President Donald Trump after the picture, which was part of a display of all of the country's chief executives, was removed from the wall of the rotunda in the State Capitol following complaints about the likeness from Trump on March 25 in Denver. (David Zalubowski\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portraitist Sarah Boardman says her business has been harmed by president\u2019s comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,394,28,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-headlines","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77856,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22792\/revisions\/77856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22792"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}