As soon as Donald Trump raised his fist in defiance after an assassination attempt last summer, Los Angeles art broker Steve Barber knew that the moment should be preserved for posterity.
“What Trump did was nuts,” Barber said. “He shouldn’t have been able to do it. If the Secret Service had been doing their job, it never would have happened, but because they weren’t, Trump had the opportunity to do this crazy thing.”
So he turned to Loveland’s own Lundeen Sculpture, a nationally acclaimed studio with pieces in public spaces around the country. In the past, Barber has worked with Lundeen on other large projects, including an Apollo 11 sculpture installed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and a tribute to veterans now gracing the headquarters of Lowe’s Home Improvement in North Carolina, among others.
“I’ve been around the world and talked to 100 different sculptors and I only know of one other guy that’s at their level,” Barber said of Lundeen. “Nobody does what these guys do. It’s mind-boggling.”
With the artist and subject in hand, Barber then needed to find someone to pay for the work, though he declined to reveal the price. After some calling around, he was connected to Anthony Constantino, the founder and chief executive officer of Sticker Mule, who is better known for his outspoken support of Trump.
Immediately following the assassination attempt, Constantino went viral for a social media post calling for an end to political violence. A few months later, he was also involved in a high-profile dispute with officials in Amsterdam, New York after he erected a 100-foot “Vote for Trump” sign that violated city code.
Constantino is now running for Congress in New York’s 21st congressional district in a special election to replace Elise Stefanik, who is expected to be confirmed as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Barber said that Constantino needed some convincing to back the Trump sculpture, but, once persuaded, went “all in.” Constantino got a sneak peak of the nearly completed piece on Monday night and “loved it,” according to Barber.
“I’m in the heart business,” Barber said. “And Anthony Constantino’s got heart.”
The 7-foot sculpture doesn’t depict the most famous post-assassination attempt photo, with the bloodied candidate surrounded by Secret Service agents against the backdrop of an American flag, but it does show Trump in a defiant pose with his fist raised and gripping a ball cap reading “Make America Great Again.”
George Lundeen said that, once Constantino was on board, the work went quickly, thanks to the proliferation of Trump images in the media. George Lundeen’s brother Mark Lundeen and sculptor Joey Bainer also assisted with the bronze statue.
“We’ve done so many different personalities through the years that as long as we have a couple of good photographs, we’re usually pretty confident,” Lundeen said. “With President Trump, we didn’t have a hard time finding photos and we were able to throw it together in about 10 days.”
The sculpture has been cast in bronze and is mostly complete, but needs a few finishing touches, including a patina. Once completed, sometime later this week, the piece will be loaded on a truck and driven to West Palm Beach, Florida, to be installed at the Trump International Golf Club.
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