British painter says Trump portrait accusations put her business in danger
Artist Sarah Boardman created the painting of the US president, which was recently taken down.
A British-born painter has said that Donald Trump’s accusations that his portrait was distorted have put her business in “danger”.
Artist Sarah Boardman’s painting of the US president has been hanging in the Colorado State Capitol Building Rotunda in Denver for more than five years, until being taken down after Mr Trump’s comments last month.
She had remained silent following Mr Trump’s remarks before issuing a statement saying: “I completed the portrait accurately, without ‘purposeful distortion’, political bias, or any attempt to caricature the subject, actual or implied.
“I fulfilled the task per my contract.
“For the six years that the portrait hung in the Colorado State Capitol Building Rotunda, I received overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback.
“Since President Trump’s comments, that has changed for the worst.
“President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I ‘purposefully distorted’ the portrait, and that I ‘must have lost my talent as I got older’ are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years which now is in danger of not recovering.”
Last month, Mr Trump claimed on his social media platform Truth Social that a portrait of former Democrat president Barack Obama, also created by Boardman, is “wonderful”, but his is “truly the worst”.
He also said that Boardman, who has a painting of Republican President George W Bush, “must have lost her talent as she got older”.
Mr Trump wrote: “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.”
Colorado Republicans raised more than 10,000 dollars (£8,360) through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting, and Boardman said that the Colorado State Capitol Advisory Committee approved her “reference photograph and my subsequent ‘works in progress'”.
She also said that Mr Trump has called her “intentions, integrity, and abilities” into “question”.
Boardman works from her studio in Colorado Springs and was born in England, according to her website.
She studied in Germany, and also lived in Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Middle East and many European countries.
Boardman previously told The Denver Post that it was important her depictions of both Mr Obama and Mr Trump looked “apolitical”.
Mr Trump is not the first political figure to be upset at a portrait of themselves.
British artist Graham Sutherland’s 1954 portrait of Winston Churchill was destroyed, after the former British prime minister hated it so much.
An episode of Netflix royal drama The Crown revolved around the creation of the painting, and last year Sutherland’s preparatory painting of Churchill was sold by Sotheby’s auction house for £660,000.
