Trump takes spot in National Portrait Gallery
The placement of Donald Trump’s presidential image invites “heated conversation,” says Mount Holyoke art professor Paul Staiti.
By Keely Sexton
The official portraits of Donald and Melania Trump will hang alongside their presidential predecessors in the National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C.
While a traditional oil painting is underway, a photographic image of President Trump now hangs where the official portrait will be: across from the bold late civil rights activist U.S. Representative John Lewis and next to the infamous President Richard Nixon, who resigned to avoid impeachment.
In addition to its location relative to Lewis and Nixon, Trump’s image hangs on a freestanding gallery wall, and Barack Obama’s famous “Hope” poster faces out from the other side.
The position of the image “invites heated conversation,” said Paul Staiti, Professor of Fine Arts on the Alumnae Foundation, in a.
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