Just two months after the Smithsonian Institute announced plans to re-open in May with a new portrait of former President Donald Trump, the museum now says it still has no further details to share about the painting.
According to People, the Smithsonian maintains that it is “pursuing commissioned portraits of former President Trump and Mrs. Trump,” but does not have any further details to share regarding the presidential portrait, which will ultimately hang in the National Portrait Gallery America’s Presidents exhibition.
Granted, presidential portraits do take quite some time.
After leaving office in 2016, Barack Obama chose the artist Kehinde Wiley to paint his museum portrait. Wiley’s work took more than two years from his first conversation about the commission to the February 2018 unveiling.
In a 2018 interview with The New Yorker, Wiley explained how his selection came after several meetings with Obama.
“Well, first off, you don’t really just get the gig. You have to show up and essentially audition for it,” Wiley told the magazine. “There was a series of meetings back in the Oval Office when Obama was the president. And I remember being as nervous as I’ve ever been.”
While Trump’s museum portrait is in the works, a photograph of him hangs in a space reserved for the most recent former U.S. president at the National Gallery.
The photo, taken in 2019 by Pari Dukovic for TIME, shows a seated Trump behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk. It replaces Wiley’s portrait of Obama, which is now part of a traveling exhibit.
According to The Washington Post, the photographic portrait is among five depictions of President Trump in the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection and will remain on view while the museum portraits of both him and former First Lady Melania Trump are completed.
