Painter of ‘truly the worst’ Trump portrait says president’s comments threaten her art career

Portraitist Sarah A. Boardman has contested Trump’s claim she “purposefully distorted” his image, saying his criticism “directly and negatively” impacted her painting business.

The painter whose portrait of Donald Trump was removed from the Colorado state Capitol after the US president branded it “truly the worst” says the criticism has put her four-decade art career at risk. In a statement published to her personal website, portraitist Sarah A. Boardman said Trump’s allegation that she “purposefully distorted” his image was “directly and negatively impacting my business… which now is in danger of not recovering.” Boardman’s painting had hung alongside portraits of other US presidents at the state Capitol in Denver for almost six years before Trump voiced his displeasure with the artwork on social media last month. The work was subsequently removed at the request of Republicans, including Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, who said it should be replaced with one depicting Trump’s “contemporary likeness,” the Associated Press reported at the time. In a post published on Truth Social, the US president had written: “Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the state Capitol … was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before.” He unfavorably compared the painting to Boardman’s portrait of former president Barack Obama — which hung beside it in the Capitol’s third-floor rotunda — writing it looked “wonderful,” while “the one on me is truly the worst.” Trump also took a personal swipe at British-born Boardman, saying: “She must have lost her talent as she got older.” But Boardman disputed Trump’s allegations, arguing that she had worked “accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion,’ political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.” The artist added she had received “overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback” about the work since it was unveiled in 2019.