Donald Trump wants a new presidential portrait done to replace one commissioned after his first term that’s never seen the light of day.
“President Trump was appreciative of the portrait created for his 45th term, and looks forward to seeing the completion of a portrait that will encapsulate both his 45th and 47th presidential terms,” White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, told The New York Times Friday.
The first painting would otherwise have hung in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery as part of its permanent exhibition, “America’s Presidents.”
The institution has not yet displayed the previous artwork—commissioned from artist Ronald Sherr, with his fee of $650,000 raised by a pro-Trump PAC—because it doesn’t hang official portraits until after a president has left office for good.
By the time Sherr’s work had been submitted to the gallery, after his death in 2022, Trump had already announced he’d be running again for the White House.
The New York Times notes it remains unclear at this stage why Trump has chosen to commission a new painting to feature at the Smithsonian.
White House officials reportedly said he regards the previous portrait as “a vestige of his first term,” and that he believes “it would be more appropriate for a newly commissioned portrait to represent his entire time in office.”
Sherr’s widow, Lois, claims the artist traveled to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021 to discuss the painting, and later returned for four painting sessions as part of the preliminary work.
She says the final result features Trump standing in front of the White House and a multitude of American flags. “Ron was struck, time and again, that the strongest images were those of Trump at his rallies,” Lois said. “It seemed fitting.”
For now, the America’s Presidents exhibition at the Smithsonian features only a placeholder photograph of the MAGA leader. That picture was reportedly swapped in last month to replace one Trump had disliked, with a wall text featuring a mention of his two impeachments also removed.
Over the years, the president has proven himself notoriously averse to artistic renderings and photographs he feels fail to do his image justice.
In October, he criticized a “super bad” Time magazine cover photo of himself because it made his hair “disappear” and gave him a “really weird look.”
It was later replaced with an image the Daily Beast exclusively reported appeared to have been inspired by an uncannily similar photo of German industrialist Alfried Krupp, a convicted Nazi war criminal.
That complaint followed after Trump objected to a portrait of himself in the Colorado State Capitol earlier in March 2025, which he called “purposefully distorted” and “truly the worst.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Smithsonian for comment on this story.
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