The presidential portraits hanging in the Colorado Capitol will be taken down at least through 2026 and replaced with an exhibit celebrating Colorado’s 150th statehood anniversary.
The Capitol Building Advisory Committee voted 9-2 on Thursday to approve the change.
The decision to remove the presidential portraits in the third-floor rotunda, at least temporarily, comes after an uproar earlier this year when President Donald Trump complained about how he looked in his Colorado Capitol portrait. Trump called the portrait “truly the worst.”
The painting, which led to international headlines, was removed in response to Trump’s gripe and eventually replaced with a portrait provided by the White House.
The Capitol Building Advisory Committee initially was considering, after Trump’s backlash, whether to permanently replace the presidential portraits in the third-floor rotunda with renderings of the state’s governors. But that posed its own problems.
History Colorado has portraits of all but four of the state’s governors. The missing portraits include one of Gov. Jared Polis. (The portraits are completed after a governor leaves office.)
Another issue is that the gubernatorial portraits are not uniform in size. The presidential portraits are. Displaying the paintings of the former governor on the curved walls of the rotunda would require some planning.
Instead, the Capitol Building Advisory Committee voted Thursday to move forward with an exhibit that will feature the official legislative photos of all 100 state lawmakers paired with pictures of them as children and blurbs about why they got into public service.
The idea behind the exhibit, which is projected to be relatively inexpensive, is to inspire the thousands of schoolchildren who visit the Colorado Capitol each year.
The presidential portrait gallery at the Colorado Capitol is unique among state capitols across the country. Nonpartisan staff members in the Legislature say there really isn’t a similar gallery at any other state capitol in the country.
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