Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is asking for an art curation assist, calling on her social media followers to help choose a Western-themed portrait of her that will be on display in South Dakota’s state Capitol building.
“Which one do you like for the official Governor’s portrait to hang in the South Dakota State Capitol?” Noem asked her nearly 500,000 Instagram followers in a Monday post.
Noem, the Mount Rushmore State’s former governor, shared a series of three paintings she credited to artist David Uhl.
Each of the portraits showed Noem sporting a cowboy hat while riding a horse.
Noem, 53, has described horseback riding as a relaxing way to “detox.”
“Sometimes, when you’re in this job, you do a lot of talking. And when I’m riding, I don’t have to talk,” she said in a 2020 interview.
Noem’s portrait-picking request came on the heels of some artwork-related drama involving an image of President Trump at a state Capitol.
A portrait of Trump that had been hanging in Colorado’s state Capitol for years was temporarily replaced earlier this month after the president blasted it as “truly the worst.”
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol … was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote in a March post on Truth Social.
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