The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

GOOD BAD&UGLY 

PORTRAITS OF OUR (UNINDICTED) LEADER 

THE THE THE 

BODEN 

OUT OF 

PARADISE 

ATSEFF 

The Seven Deadly Sins 

A Trump Dystopian Heptology 

RAVEN 

UNAFRAID 

& 

UNASHAMED 

CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ART, Washington, DC

" 

! 

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lank page 1

Copyright@2019. 

Center for Contemporary Political Art. All rights reserved. No part of this 

catalogue can be reproduced without the permission of the publisher. 

Printed in USA 

The Center for Contemporary Political Art (CCPArt) is located at Mather Studios, 

916 G. Street, NW, Washington, DC and is a not-for-profit 501(c)3. 

Contact: 

202.412.2324 

charles@politicsartus.org 

Gallery Hours 

Monday - Thursday, by Appointment 

Friday - Sunday, Noon to 6pm 

Metro Accessible: 

Gallery Place & Metro Center 

No Fee for Programs, 

but DONATIONS are always welcome 

Visit us on Facebook 

Art for Sale: 

If you are interested purchasing a piece of art from the show, please email 

info@politicartus.org and include the artist’s name, the title or number of the work. 

CCPArt will connect you directly with the artist. CCPArt does not take a percentage 

or a fee. You and the artist are responsible for the sale and delivery arrangements. 

Charles Krause- Founder 

Keep Political Art Alive 

To donate, go to politicsartus.org and click the DONATE tab. 

Your support is greatly needed and appreciated to help advance the importance of 

political art and the dialogue that it provokes.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY 

PORTRAITS OF OUR (UNINDICTED) LEADER 

ATSEFF RAVEN BODEN 

MAY 8 - JUNE 28 

CAN WE AGREE TO DISAGREE? 

 

THE 

CENTER FOR 

CONTEMPORARY 

POLITICAL 

ART 

916 G STREET NW WASHINGTON, DC 20001 

www.politicsartus.org 

THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ART 

Washington, DC 20001 / www.politicsartus.org

FOUNDER’S FOREWORD 

I must admit I had mischief on my mind when I invited Julian Raven to exhibit his massive 

portrait of Donald Trump, Unafraid and Unashamed, alongside Tim Atseff’s nasty 7 Deadly 

Sins portraits of the President and Jim Boden’s chilling Out of Paradise collages. 

hat would have been a two-man show of 

Atseff and Boden’s work, titled, The 

Grotesque in 21st Century Political Art, 

became a three-man show, The Good, The 

Bad & The Ugly: Portraits of Our 

(Unindicted) Leader— possibly the first 

exhibition, anywhere, to present work by 

artists who both support and oppose the 

most polarizing, divisive President in our 

country’s post-Civil War history. 

I first became aware of Julian Raven’s 

controversial portrait when several people 

sent me links to Will Sommer’s interview 

with the artist in the March 12 th (2019) 

editions of The Daily Beast. What Sommer 

reported was the simmering controversy 

over the massive 8’ x 16’ portrait of Our 

Leader, painted in 2015, which The 

Candidate liked so much he had a copy 

made for Trump Tower, but which the 

august Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery 

had refused to exhibit. 

After nearly two years of rejection by the Portrait Gallery, Raven 

did what no other artist is known to have ever done: he sued, arguing 

the Gallery had violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights by 

refusing to hang his Trump. According to Raven’s legal complaint, 

which the artist wrote and argued himself, the reasons Kim Sajet, the 

Charles Krause, Founding Director of the Center for 

Contemporary Political Art. 

National Portrait Gallery’s director, had given 

him for not exhibiting Unafraid and 

Unashamed were various. At one point, she 

said the painting was “too big;” at another, 

“too political;” and, finally, “not very good.” 

After a recent adverse ruling by U.S. 

District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, who 

found that “the First Amendment simply does 

not apply to government art selection, no 

matter how arbitrary,” The Beast quoted 

Raven as saying he was prepared to appeal 

McFadden’s finding “all the way to the 

Supreme Court” if the Portrait Gallery didn’t 

come to its senses and exhibit the portrait of 

its own accord. 

Perfect, I thought. Here was a political 

painting that had become a political football 

because it was deemed to be “too political.” 

Why not stir the pot and stand up for what we 

at CCPArt believe, which is that “too political” 

is a lame and even cowardly excuse for not 

exhibiting a work of art at any time, but especially in times like these. 

By showing the Raven painting at CCPArt, fortuitously located just 

a block away from the Portrait Gallery, we‘d be tweaking two sitting 

ducks with one large canvas: our Established neighbor to the East for 

being un-democratic or too Democratic (take your pick) and Our 

Leader to the West for not knowing the difference between fine art

and the kind of Socialist Realist 

propaganda art Stalin would have 

loved. 

Whatever one thinks of the 

painting, Raven’s lawsuit does raise 

legitimate questions about institutional 

bias (not to be confused with state 

censorship) akin to Banned in Boston 

morals censorship the Brahmin 

authorities used to exercise there. 

I could see the poster for our 

exhibit before I’d even seen the 

painting. 

Truth be told, I was surprised when 

Raven accepted the Center’s invitation 

to show Unafraid and Unashamed. 

And even more surprised when he told 

me why. Showing his painting along with the others by Tim Atseff and 

Jim Boden, which I sent him images of to be sure he knew what he was 

getting into, might help start a dialogue between Trump supporters and 

opponents, he said. 

It was a dialogue, he added, which he thought was necessary and long 

overdue. 

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Portraits of Our (Unindicted) Leader 

is an unusual exhibit because, unlike most museum exhibitions in the 

United States, it is being presented to encourage discussion and political 

debate in real time, when it’s needed. If the discussion and political 

debate leads to dialogue, so much better. 

The artists have agreed to talk about their art and the politics that 

motivated them to create it. 

We’ll also invite others---political scientists, ethicists, Constitutional 

experts—to talk about civic responsibility and the ethical, moral and legal 

duties and responsibilities, not only of common citizens, but of civil 

servants and military personnel when ordered to carry out the wishes or 

policies of a leader who may be ill-informed, psychologically unbalanced 

or who willfully orders government 

employees to violate the laws and 

Constitution he has sworn to uphold 

and protect. 

We’ll also discuss censorship in 

the arts and Michael Cohen’s 

warning that this President may 

refuse to leave office when his term 

is up. What do we do? What if he 

orders the FBI to detain journalists 

or the editors, publishers and 

producers of the “fake news” media 

he’s attempted to discredit and 

blame for his missteps and failures. 

What if he suspends the writ of 

habeas corpus, which the 

Constitution gives him the power to 

do? 

What if he signs an executive order making it a crime to question the 

veracity or accuracy of Presidential statements, official government reports 

and the statistics underlying them? 

Oh, you say, that’s unthinkable. I would say look closely at the paintings 

and collages in this exhibit because they give us clues to a number of 

unthinkable things we should all be thinking about. 

Tim Atseff was for years a political cartoonist, a managing editor and 

magazine editor at the Syracuse (N.Y). Post-Standard. Jim Boden 

recently retired from Coker College in Hartsville, S.C., where he was a 

professor of fine arts. Julian Raven brings the perspective of an émigré 

born in Great Britain and educated in Spain who’s become a U.S. citizen. 

This exhibit, The Good, the Bad & The Ugly: Portraits of Our 

(Unindicted) Leader, demonstrates what we mean when we say THE 

CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ART aspires to be The 

Art World’s Editorial Page. 

We’ll be exhibiting fine and graphic art that addresses real issues in real 

time, issues central to the survival of the country we once thought we lived 

in…for all to see.

TSEFF 

! 

7DEADLY 

SINS 

A 

TRUMP 

DYSTOPIAN 

HEPTOLOGY 

THE CENTER FOR 

CONTEMPORARY 

POLITICAL ART 

WASHINGTON, DC

ARTIST’S STATEMENT 

Art, in all its forms, is meant to be evocative and provocative. Its 

power is in the response—good, bad, beautiful, ugly. Drawn in, 

repulsed. 

My professional career was spent as a journalist. It's long been 

accepted that the unofficial motto of newspapers was to afflict the 

comfortable and comfort the afflicted. I spent several of those years 

behind the drawing board as an editorial cartoonist. That was my job 

— expose hypocrisy and corruption by poking at public officials and 

cultural conditions with the stroke of a sharp pen. 

The art of caricature and political cartooning has a long and rich 

history. We are all artistic animals. Artists have been exploiting the 

faces of political and public figures in satire from the days of the 

Cro-Magnon man scratching images on cave walls to Di Vinci, 

Daumier, Dali, Goya, Bacon, Nast and contemporaries like The 

Washington Post’s Herblock or Oliphant. Enlarge a nose or jowl 

here and droop an ear-lobe or create tiny hands there. The idea is to 

take an imperfection, a character flaw, and apply a magnifying glass 

while still capturing the subject’s likeness. 

When the Center for 

Contemporary Political Art 

offered the opportunity to install 

my Deadly Sins series, I jumped 

at the chance. The chance to 

merge two “not 

normal” disciplines— my fine art 

with my political cartoon 

background into one hybrid 

presentation. A series of seven political cartoons on steroids. I 

guess they could be called “Artoons”. 

Anyway, when I get an itch, I have to scratch it. Trump is my 

itch. For the past two years, I have felt like I’ve had a bad case of 

poison ivy. It has left me raw and scarred. Trump’s Tower of Babel 

drove me to daily to distraction. To vent, I took a detour back to 

political commentary as a form of therapy, of coping. 

Trump and the feckless lemmings under his spell have been 

assaulting objective truth on a daily, hourly and an almost minuteby-minute 

basis. They are complicit, corrupt, immoral and indecent, 

lacking a moral compass. 

What began as a private exploration of my own feelings of 

frustration, fear and helplessness in the smog of lies, degradation of 

civility and the rule of law resulted in this series of the Seven Deadly 

Sins. A Trump Dystopian Heptology. Trump demonstrates on a daily 

basis that he embodies each sin. His narcissism is full-throated, 

unabashed and butt-naked for all to see in plain sight. 

Perhaps this “Art of Deal” President never read Goethe’s Faust 

(1808). Faust, too, was a 

dealmaker. His Faustian 

bargain didn’t turn out so well 

for him either. Wait!…“He 

never read”. Silly me. 

So, in the end, whether you 

share my art’s sensibilities, is 

not my business. You decide.

✓ 

! " 

SINS 

GLUTTONY 

VIRTUES 

TEMPERANCE 

✓ 

✓ 

✓ 

✓ 

✓ 

✓ 

GREED 

LUST 

SLOTH 

WRATH 

VANITY 

ENVY 

CHARITY 

CHASITY 

DILIGENCE 

PATIENCE 

HUMILITY 

KINDNESS

GLUTTONY GREED LUST SLOTH WRATH VANITY ENVY 

GLUTTONY 

Trump, though art a paunchy, swag-bellied, boar pig. 

Trump’s reign of a two-scooped, fast-food, empty-caloried, engorged presidency is the 

personification of a craven, digital depravity that stirs our worst national ideals. His excesses 

and insatiable hunger for attention and power closely parallels the authoritarian behavior of 

a Vladimir Putin or past oppressive and contemptuous tyrannts. 

Trump exemplifies a rude narcissism laced with a nihilistic delusion free of consequences 

and supported by spineless Congressional lemmings. 

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the 

Bikers for Trump— I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough -- until they go to a 

certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.” 

—Donald Trump, March 14, 2019

Oil, acrylic, 

police tape, 

emojis. 

48” x 60” 

2019


GREED 

 

Trump, thou art a gilded, conniving, forked-tongued fraud. 

“My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy. I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. 

I’m so greedy. But now I want to be greedy for the United States. I want to grab all that 

money. I’m going to be greedy for the United States.” 

—Donald Trump, January 21, 2016


police tape, 

emojis flag and 

plastic gold coins 

and shredded 

currency. 

48” x 60” 

2018


LUST 

Trump, thou art a small-handed, orange-faced, flaccid, momma’s-boy. 

“I think Viagra is wonderful if you need it, if you have medical issues, if you’ve 

had surgery. I’ve just never needed it. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if there were an 

anti-Viagra, something with the opposite effect. I’m not bragging. I’m just lucky. I 

don’t need it. I’ve always said, ‘If you need Viagra, you’re probably with the 

wrong girl’.” 

—Donald “POTUS Interruptus” August 11, 2015


police tape, 

emojis. 

48” x 36” 

2019


SLOTH 

Thou art a lazy, muddle-brained, slug. 

EXECUTIVE TIME!


police tape, 

emojis. 

48” x 36” 

2019


WRATH 

Trump, Trump, thou thou art art a villainous, tickle-brained, bully-rag. bully-rag. 

“Get even even with with people. people. If If they they screw screw you, you, screw screw them them back back 10 10 

times as as hard. I I really believe it! it!” 

(Of (Of course, unless they they have have the the ability ability to to screw screw you you into into oblivion. 

The The weaker, the the better.) 

—Donald Trump, 2011


police tape, 

emojis, flag. 

48” x 60” 

2018


VANITY 

Trump, thou art, a beslubbering, motley-minded, lout. 

“You know, I’m, like, a smart person.” “I am a really smart guy.” “I’ve been known 

as being a very smart guy for a long time.” “I have a very good brain and I’ve said 

a lot of things.” “I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very 

intelligent.” “And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I’m smarter than all of 

them put together, but they can’t admit it.” “My IQ is one of the highest — and 

you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.” “My 

two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart…. I 

went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star, to President of the 

United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but 

genius….and a very stable genius at that!” 

—Donald Trump, January, 2018


police tape, 

emojis. 

48” x 60” 

2018


ENVY 

Trump, Thou art a fawning, idle-headed, wagtail. 

“Hey, he’s head of a country (Kim Jong Un). And I mean he is a 

strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and 

his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” 

—Donald Trump June 15, 2018


police tape, 

emojis. 

48” x 60” 

2019

BIO 

Tim Atseff is a native of Syracuse, N.Y. and a1970 graduate of the School 

of Art at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale majoring painting. While 

at Southern, Atseff began his sandbox cartooning and illustration years at the 

school’s newspaper, The Daily Egyptian. 

After graduation, Atseff returned to Syracuse to work for the afternoon 

newspaper, the Syracuse Herald-Journal. There he served 

as an artist, the Art and Design Director, Editorial 

Cartoonist, Deputy Managing Editor and Managing 

Editor. 

As an Editorial Cartoonist, Atseff jabbed the powerful 

and bloated from the Nixon through the Reagan years. 

During that period, Atseff penned over 1500 local, 

national and international cartoons. Some appearing in 

the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe as 

well as several political cartoon anthologies and other 

books. 

Atseff retired from The Post-Standard, Syracuse's 

morning newspaper, in 2011 after 46 years of service. His 

responsibilities at The Post-Standard were as Marketing 

and New Product Development Manager and finally as the 

creator and editor of Central New York Magazine, CNY Business Exchange 

Magazine and Central New York Sports Magazine. 

During Atseff’s professional career, he served as president of the New 

York State Managing Editor’s Association, and on the national board of 

directors of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association where he 

chaired the committees of Foreign News, Ethics, Photo and Graphics, Sports, 

Innovation as well as chair of the group’s national convention in Atlanta. 

Atseff was also a member of the American Association of Editorial 

Cartoonists well as The Society for Newspaper Design where he had won 

GRAPHY 

over twenty national awards for newspaper design. In 2006, Atseff was 

inducted into the Syracuse Press Club Wall of Fame. 

Atseff’s community service includes the boards of the Boys and Girls 

Club, the Crouse Health Foundation and the Onondaga Historical 

Association. 

In the recent past, Atseff was named the "Community 

Trustee of the Year" by the civic and business group, 

Leadership Greater Syracuse, for the positive impact the 

magazines he created had on the image of the Central New 

York region. He was also received the Onondaga Citizens 

League 2012 Civic Beautification Award for defining and 

creating a public space and sculpture for Susan Atseff 

Memorial Park, also known as Salt Springs Park. The pocketpark 

was established in memory of his late wife Susan and the 

caregivers who devote themselves to comforting others. 

Since his “rewirement” Atseff has designed and edited six 

table-top books- An Artist’s Life, Frank Townsend Hutchens, 

The Art of a Life, Dorothy Riester— A Memoir, and Kokum 

Lena of the First Nation Algonquin, The Hunt, A Lifetime of 

Pursing Big Game, Syracuse’s Grand Hotel and Dancing in 

Two Realms. Most recently, he redesigned and helped publish the Onondaga 

Historical Association’s History Highlights magazine in his role as a board 

member. 

Throughout his professional career, Atseff worked in spurts on building a 

body of paintings. Previous shows of his paintings were held at the Everson 

Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y. and Xerox Center in Rochester, N.Y. He 

also had a show of his editorial cartoons at the Onondaga Historical Society. 

Atseff’s lastest spurt yielded the Seven Deadly Sins— A Trump Dystopian 

Heptology.

P A I N T I N G S 

J U S T P A S S I N G T H R O U G H , B U T T O W H E R E ? 

Acrylic on 

canvas 

72” x 54” 

1970 

A S A M P L I N G O F P R E V I O U S W O R K …

Acrylic 

on canvas 

39’ x 48” 

1973 

Acrylic 

on canvas 

50” x72” 

1982 

Acrylic 

on canvas 

36” x 48” 

2009

POLITICAL 

CARTOONS 

“Stop those damn pictures! I don’t give a straw 

what newspapers say about me. My constituents 

can’t read, but damn it, they can see pictures”. 

—“Boss” Tweed on cartoonist Thomas Nast, 1875 

 

Open season regardless of party affiliation.

Redact 

23” x 29” 

Mixed media on 

parchment 

2019

ODEN

Page 30 

Blank


Bad references the Trump Effect on our nation – internally and externally - unseating standards through 

misdirection and confusion. Actions taken, not in an iconoclastic manner, but by gas-lighting, fogging 

reality, altering facts, lying eyes, and deception. The result is a cynical nihilism, the reward of selfaggrandizement 

based on swamp fumes. 

Jim Boden in his studio.

C O L L A G E S 

Pillage Practice 

All collages in the 

series are 9” x12” , 

mixed-media on 

watercolor. 

OUT OF 

PARADISE 

A Series 

 

Election Observer 

Hyena Herd

Kek Dike 

Spew 

Wall Building

Supreme Court 

Mining the Swamp 

Wall Security

Wall Improv 

Best Foot Forward 

Passport Control

Silencing Treatment 

Tread on This 

Feed ‘em Shit Early, They’ll Develop a Taste For It

Loyalty Oath 

Grab a Pussy 

No Admittance

Plumbing the Swamp 

Medusa 

One to Another

Leap of Faith 

Politician 

Tide Is In

Meager Diet 

Not Trafalgar Square 

Split House

Country Club Social 

Interior Scroll 

Salesman

Unkek 

Narcissist Training 

Moo Cow

P A I N T I N G S 

FOUNDING FATHERS SERIES 

Oil on canvas 7” x 5”—- 2016

Wall Building Oil and acrylic on canvas 12” x 16” — 2019 Traversing the Swamp Oil and acrylic on canvas 12” x 16” — 2019 

Swamp Free Fall Oil and acrylic on canvas 12” x 16” —2019 

Border Watch Oil and acrylic on canvas 12” x 16”— 2016

Jim Boden 

Professor Emeritus 

Art Department, Coker College, Hartsville, SC 29550 

 

Education 

1996 M.F.A., University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 

1974 B.S. Art Education, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions 

2019: Selected Works, “ Waters Gallery, Florence Co Museum, 

Florence, SC 

Out of Paradise,” Cecelia Bell Gallery, Coker College, Hartsville, SC 

2017: “Out of Paradise,” Crema, Hartsville, South Carolina 

2015: “Recent Work,” Coker College, Hartsville, South Carolina 

2011: “Interrogate,” Art Mission and Theater, Binghamton, New York 

“Interrogate,” Lake George Art Center, Lake George, New York 

2008: “Spectators,” Hyman Fine Arts Center Gallery, Francis Marion 

University, Florence, South Carolina 

2003: “One Provocative and One Evocative Series,” Rabold Gallery, 

Aiken, South Carolina 

 

Selected Group Shows 

2019: “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly,” Center for Contemporary 

Political Art, Washington DC 

2018: “Art in the Age of Trump,” Center for Contemporary Political Art, 

Washington D.C. 

“Anonyme Zeichner 2018,” Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, Germany 

“Human Rights, Social Justice, & Environment Art Exhibition,” Lane 

Community College, Eugene, Oregon 

“Collage Garden,” Oxford College, Kathmandu, Nepal 

2017: “National Small Oil Painting,” MarkArts, Wichita, Kansas 

2015: “Anonyme Zeichner 2015,” Kunstverein Tiergarten / Galerie Nord, 

Berlin, Germany 

“10th Annual Human Rights Exhibition,” South Texas College, McAllen, 

Texas 

“SmallWorks 11,” 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, New York 

2014: “9th Annual Human Rights Exhibition,” South Texas College, 

McAllen, Texas 

“10th Anniversary of Regis Center for the Arts,” Univeristy of Minnesota, 

Minneapolis, Minnesota 

“ 

701 CCA Biennial,” 701 Gallery, Columbia, South Carolina 

2010: “Unwrap Your Mind,” That Gallery, Hong Kong, China 

“Uncensored,” AndersonCreative, Canton, Ohio 

“5th Annual Human Rights Exhibition,” South Texas College, McAllen, 

Texas 

“Art of Conflict,” Reconciliation Project, Tarnish and Gold Gallery, 

Minneapolis, Minnesota 

2009: “MANU PROPRIA” International Drawing Triennial, Tallinn-Viinistu, 

Estonia 

2004: “National Small Painting Exhibition,” Wichita Center for the Arts, 

Wichita, Kansas 

2001: “International Drawing Biennale,” Polish Art Foundation, 

Melbourne, Australia 

 

Public Collections 

South Texas College, McAllen, Texas 

Polish Art Foundation, Melbourne, Australia 

Coker College, Hartsville, South Carolina 

Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio 

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 

White Bear Lake Public Library, White Bear Lake, Minnesota 

Minnesota Education Association, St. Paul, Minnesota 

 

Selected Catalogues 

Defining the Art of Change: In the Age of Trump. Center for 

Contemporary Political Art, Washington DC, 2018 

National Small Oil Painting Exhibition, MarkArts, Wichita, Kansas, 2016 

ArtFields 2016, Lake City, South Carolina, 2016 

“Anonyme Zeichner 2015,” Kunstverein Tiergarten / Galerie Nord, 

Berlin, Germany, 2015 

ArtFields 2015, Lake City, South Carolina, 2015 

9th Annual Human Rights Exhibition, South Texas College, McAllen, 

Texas, 2014 

5th Annual Human Rights Exhibition, South Texas College, McAllen, 

Texas, 2010 

1st International Drawing Biennale, Polish Art Foundation, Melbourne, 

Australia, 2001 

Border to Border 6: Larson National Biennial Drawing Exhibition, Austin 

Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee, 1997

RAVEN 

DONALD TRUMP: 

UNAFRAID & UNASHAMED 

8’ X 16’ 

2015


Being a visual ‘artist’ is an ongoing struggle both to 

master the pictorial language and to skillfully communicate 

through it. 

Art is capable of expressing the deepest of human 

thought, belief, emotion and experience. The generative 

power of art as a medium for the expression of truth makes 

art a transformational language that has the potential to 

change the very fabric of our human experience. 

My quest as an artist is to capture and express what I 

believe truly matters, what is truly inspired, whether by 

beauty or 

horror, either 

positive or 

negative, by 

lending my 

hand to help 

push the broken 

down wagon of 

our humanity 

out of the 

muddy ditch. 

My portrait 

of President 

Donald Trump—the anti-politician— was painted in 

August/September 2015 under an all-consuming fire of 

inspiration. The painting expresses my view that Trump is a 

natural born executive and change agent who is Unafraid 

and Unashamed to say what needs to be said, and to do 

what needs to be done, in order to make America great 

again! 

The painting exists in a totally unique art category, that 

of prescient presidential portraits. Its composition is 

dramatic and visionary, consisting of a layered symbolic 

narrative that also captures the then-intense spirit of the 

historic 2016 U.S. Presidential election campaign. A copy 

of the painting has hung in Trump Tower in New York City, 

since November of 2015. The painting was shown in the 

Iowa Caucuses in 2016 and throughout the campaign. 

In June of 2016, it was shown in ‘The Art of Politics’ art 

show along with the Obama “Hope” poster and other 

political works by the nation’s premier political artists at 

Politicon in Los Angeles. This took place at the invitation 

of Yosi Sergant, the inspiration and patron behind the 

Shepherd Fairey ‘Hope’ poster and former White House 

liaison for the arts under President Obama. 

The painting was featured in the national and 

international media at the 2016 Republican National 

Convention in Cleveland. It was highlighted in an onscreen 

showing of the image as part of Lynne Patton’s convention 

speech the viral video “The Trump Family I Know.” 

Since December of 2016 the painting has been the 

subject of a 1st Amendment Free Speech federal lawsuit 

against the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and its 

Director, Kim Sajet. 

Today, the most recognized pro-Trump painting 

continues its historic journey. In 2019, it was “the star of 

CPAC,” according to Will Sommer of The Daily Beast. 

Shown during the convention at National Harbor’s Gaylord 

Convention Center, the painting was celebrated with 

massive interactions by both attendees and the media. 

Following a second Daily Beast article in March 

about the Smithsonian lawsuit, the art world caught on to 

the story—creating a firestorm of internet articles, blogs, 

Facebook shares, memes, gifs, outrage, ridicule, volumes 

of hate mail and a subsequent twitter hysteria cycle. 

Shortly after the article was published, I was pleased 

to accept The Center For Contemporary Political Art’s 

invitation to show the painting in Washington D.C.. I 

viewed it as offering a much needed and timely opportunity 

to engage in a dialogue, long overdue in the arts, about 

President Donald Trump from intensely opposing political 

artistic opinions and expressions. 

Ironically, Unafraid and Unashamed will now be on 

display, one block from the Smithsonian National Portrait 

Gallery and six blocks from the White House, for all of 

Washington to see, and decide, what the real reasons were 

for the Portrait Gallery’s decision not to show it. 

Julian Raven’s Bio 

Julian Raven was born in 

Richmond Upon Thames in London, 

England and raised in Marbella on 

the Mediterranean in Spain. 

Raven’s grandfather was a 

painter by night and an engineer by 

day. His grandfather’s love for art 

was expressed by devouring art 

history books and attending art 

classes at night. 

However, It was Raven’s 

mathematics teacher in Marbella, 

who noticed Raven’s inclination 

towards fine art having observed him 

doodling. Impressed with Raven’s 

potential, the teacher introduced him 

to art master David Bodlak. 

Bodlak would have a profound 

influence on Raven. This creative 

relationship culminated in Raven’s 

acceptance into the Chelsea School 

of Art in London. 

Although the art school was 

heaven for artists, Raven’s bouts 

depression caused a premature 

departure from Chelsea. 

The need to survive financially led 

Raven into bar ownership and life in 

the fast lane where he bottomed out. 

Divine intervention turned him to 

become a missionary where he 

followed the breeze to the Americas. 

That was over 20 years ago. 

Raven now finds himself back at 

the canvas as an American citizen, 

on a journey that now embraces his 

faith, family, politics and art. 

Julian Raven lives in Elmira, New 

York with his wife and three 

teenaged children. 

For more information: www.julianraven.com 

www.thetrumppainting.com

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T h e C e n t e r f o r C o n t e m p o r a r y P o l i t i c a l A r t 

W a s h i n g t o n , DC

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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