Artist Sarah Boardman, who was commissioned to do two presidential portraits for the Colorado state Capitol, rejected President Donald Trump’s assertion that her painting of him was “purposely distorted,” saying she did her job without any political bias.

Boardman added her decades-old business is in danger of “not recovering” as a result of the president’s comments. 

“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,” she said in a statement.

In the past several weeks, Trump’s complaint is putting her career and business in jeopardy, she indicated.

“For the 6 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,” she said. “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,” Boardman said.

Boardman was hired to do both the portrait of Trump, which was paid for by a Republican-led crowd-funding campaign that raised more than $10,000 and a portrait of President Barack Obama, which still hangs in the Capitol’s third-floor Presidential Gallery. That portrait was paid for by a nonprofit that has raised funds in the past for presidential portraits.

The Republican effort began after the nonprofit revealed that no one had contributed any money for a Trump portrait, more than 18 months after his inauguration. The portrait was hung in the gallery on Aug. 1, 2019. Trump said nothing at the time about it.

On March 22, Trump complained about the portrait, and in a decision conducted outside of the public eye, the legislature’s Executive Committee agreed to a request from Senate Minority Leader Sen. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, to take the portrait down. That occurred on March 24.

“Thank you for your enquiries,” Boardman said in the Saturday statement. “I refer to President Trump’s post on Truth Social in which my intentions, integrity, and abilities were, in my opinion, called into question.”

Boardman noted that as a professional artist, “the Colorado State Capitol Advisory Committee, Denver, commissioned me to paint the official portrait of President Trump for the Denver State Capitol Gallery of Presidents. The reference photograph and my subsequent ‘works in progress’ were all approved, throughout that process, by that committee,” she wrote.

Boardman said she would not be commenting any further.

The portrait can still be found on her website, along with portraits of President George W. Bush and the official Colorado portrait of Obama.

A native of England, Boardman spent four years in formal art studies in Germany, starting in 1984, as an apprentice to a renowned “Alt Meister” at the Wiesbaden Herzfeld School of Art, learning and practicing the techniques of the “Old Master” painters.

Her work has included five Presidential portraits, a Denver district court judge, and numerous distinguished members of the U.S. military, including 40 commissioned portraits or caricatures of U.S. Army generals, staff officers and civilians, as presentations for military ceremonies. She now lives in Colorado Springs.