A portrait of former President Barack Obama that hung in the Grand Foyer of the White House has been replaced by a painting of a bloodied and defiant Donald Trump raising his fist after an assassination attempt last year at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino posted Friday on X before-and-after photographs of the Obama portrait and the Trump painting in the same area at the bottom of the Grand Staircase. The White House also released a video Friday on its X account showing people walking past the painting of Trump where the Obama portrait used to hang.
Obama’s portrait, by artist Robert McCurdy, shows the former president in a black suit and gray tie in front of a white background. It still hangs in a place of prominence, just across the Grand Foyer from where it had been since 2022, according to a post on X by Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary.
Details of the origin of the Trump painting, its artist and who paid for it were not immediately known, CNN reported Friday, though it appears to be based on photographs of Trump taken moments after the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks on July 13, 2024, at a campaign rally in Butler.
Evan Vucci of The Associated Press and Doug Mills of The New York Times were credited with taking the photographs, which showed a bloodied Trump raising his fist while surrounded by Secret Service agents, with an American flag in the background.
The new painting was carried into the West Wing early Tuesday and was hung without significant fanfare Friday morning, CNN reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Official portraits of Trump and first lady Melania Trump for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s collection are in the works, though an unveiling has yet to be announced, CNN reported.
Both portraits will be paid for by privately raised funds, including a $650,000 donation from Trump’s Save America PAC and another private donation, which supports artist fees, shipping, framing, installation and events, according to National Portrait Gallery spokesperson Concetta Duncan.
A print of a 1989 photograph by Michael O’Brien of a smiling Trump in a suit, tossing a red apple, is also in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
Newsmax has reached out to the White House for information about the Trump painting.
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