Sen. Wayne Allard has stepped in to try and save President Bill Clinton – at least a portrait of Clinton that is hanging in the State Capitol Rotunda.
Allard, R-Colo., has written a letter to the National Archives asking that the portrait be permanently loaned to the state.
The portrait has been on loan to the state for about 10 years, but the National Archives and Records Administration wants it back as it tightens up its loan requirements. So the registrar of the William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., which is administered by the federal agency, told the state last summer that the portrait must be returned by March 30.
The painting is among the 43 portraits of U.S. presidents done by artist Lawrence Williams that hang in the rotunda.
“By removing this portrait from Colorado’s Hall of Presidents there will be a gap in their collection,” Allard wrote in a letter to National Archivist Allen Weinstein dated Feb. 15. “I am requesting that NARA grant a permanent loan of the portrait to the Colorado State Capitol.”
The Clinton portrait is the only one not owned by the state. Forty of the portraits were given to the state by Harry Sullivan and his wife and the portrait of George W. Bush, which hangs next to Clinton’s, was donated by the Stroehle family from Black Hawk.
