The sculptor Gutzon Borglum put George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem added Donald Trump—to a replica of the massive granite monument that she commissioned and then presented when he delivered a speech at a controversial Mount Rushmore celebration on July 3, 2020.
The piece has never been publicly seen and little was known about it beyond a disclosure filing with the Office of Government Ethics that indicated it cost $1,100, which Noem’s office said was paid for by private donors.
But the Daily Beast has obtained a photo of the replica, which as The New York Times first reported, does indeed depict Trump carved into the Lakota people’s sacred Black Hills, right next to Lincoln’s face.
Trump reportedly wished that his mug could be added to the real thing, but Noem, of course, could not make that happen. Instead she found donors to underwrite the smaller ego-stroking project.
Noem’s staff then contacted Dallerie Davis, a Rapid City art agent and Realtor who serves as a liaison for several sculptors in the state, according to Davis and another person familiar with the inner workings of Noem’s office who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Noem’s camp wanted to know: was it possible to create a Mount Rushmore figurine with Trump attached—and do so in about a month?
Davis told The Daily Beast she thought of Lee Leuning and Sherri Treeby, a South Dakota sculpting team with scores of pieces on display in the state and across the Midwest. (They have even been contracted to sculpt a Johnny Carson statue for the late Tonight Show host’s hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska, though sculpting work on that project has yet to begin.)
Leuning and Treeby were good, could work fast and, perhaps best of all, they were Trump supporters, Davis said.
Employing what’s known as “lost wax” casting, an ancient process that uses a clay model, hot wax and molten bronze, the duo grafted a bust of Trump in a suit and tie onto the mini-Rushmore.
Three copies were created, Leuning and Treeby revealed recently, with one going to Trump, and the other two to the unidentified donors—the names of whom are unknown even to them.
The pieces are “bookshelf-sized,” Leuning told the Daily Beast—27 inches wide, 12 inches high, and 8-1/2 inches deep.
The partners, who work out of Bad River Artworks in Aberdeen, said they were asked to remain quiet about the project, and this is the first time their names have been disclosed.
Trump must have loved the fact that his head was twice the size of the others.
But seriously, this is sick. It’s not normal. It’s Kim Jong Un stuff.