A new Trump portrait for Colorado's Capitol could take time after one he disliked was removed

Filling an empty space on the wall of presidential portraits in the Colorado Capitol with a new painting of Donald Trump could take time after one he disliked was removed and put into storage.

Legislative leaders from both parties will decide how to replace the painting that Trump derided Sunday night on social media and that by Tuesday morning had been taken down.

When they will meet about a new painting is anyone's guess. The Legislature is focused on more pressing matters including the state budget.

"We have no idea when a new portrait is going to go up, how it’s going to be fundraised, who is going to pay for it, who is going to paint it, etc.,” Joshua Bly, a spokesperson for Colorado Senate Republicans, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Bly also said no one knows yet whether Trump will get to approve a new portrait.

Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 to commission the Trump painting that had been in the state Capitol since 2019, alongside other U.S. presidents.

Sometime late Monday or early Tuesday, the Trump portrait by Colorado Springs artist Sarah Boardman was removed and put in storage with History Colorado, overseer of a state museum in Denver. It is unlikely to be displayed elsewhere, Bly said.

The move came at the request of Colorado Republicans after Trump claimed the artist had “purposefully distorted” him. He praised the portrait of Barack Obama, painted by the same artist.

On Tuesday, school groups and tourists filed past the wall where Trump's portrait once hung. Picture hooks and a plate reading “Donald Trump — 45th and 47th President — 2017-2021 and 2025-2029” remained. Some visitors stopped to take photos.

It's not the first time that Trump's attention has turned to Colorado, which has shifted from leaning red to leaning blue over the past two decades.

He criticized the Colorado Supreme Court in 2023 for declaring he was ineligible for the White House and could not appear on the state ballot because of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. While campaigning last year, Trump made the Denver suburb of Aurora a focus of his illegal immigration message.

Before his portrait was installed, a prankster placed a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin near the spot intended for Trump.

Boardman did not return phone and email messages seeking comment. In 2019, she said painted him with a “nonconfrontational” and “thoughtful” expression, drawing criticism from those who said that's not who he really is. She said her portraits of Trump and Obama were not political statements.

The presidential portraits are not the purview of the Colorado Building Advisory Committee. The ones up to and including President Jimmy Carter were donated as a collection. The others were donated by political parties or paid for by outside fundraising.

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Associated Press journalist Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.