The State Department has removed a painting by high-flying artist Kehinde Wiley from a U.S. embassy, with a Trump goon running the agency’s art operation trashing the piece as “very woke” and “aesthetically terrifying.”
Wiley, who skyrocketed to global fame after painting Barack Obama’s official portrait, created the piece for the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic. Titled Young Artists After Siamesas 1960, the canvas showcases four Dominican models framed by a lush floral backdrop—commissioned by the government back in 2013 using taxpayer dollars.
Last week, State Department suits dragged it off the wall, but not before first smothering it in a tarp printed with the U.S. flag.
Erin Scavino, a contestant on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice who is now head of the department’s Art in Embassies program, went on Sean Spicer’s podcast to gloat about the takedown, linking the decision to Wiley’s presidential ties. “She had a piece of art in her embassy that we worked very hard to get taken down. It was very woke. It was by the gentleman who did Obama’s portrait, and it was aesthetically terrifying,” Scavino said, referencing U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Leah Campos.
Campos celebrated the purge on social media with a video set to the song “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” blasting the artwork for channeling “globalist and woke ideologies.” Neither official explained what was actually wrong with the image itself.
A State Department spokeswoman dodged discussing the canvas’ contents when the New York Times reached out for comment on Monday. Instead, she dredged up a 2023 quote from Wiley about an entirely different painting, Judith and Holofernes, which he had dubbed “a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing,” alongside sexual assault allegations Wiley has denied.
“The work of an individual with such violent and racist words and depictions has no place in the America First State Department,” the spokeswoman declared, hinting they might try to flog the piece. “If that is feasible, it would be the goal of Art in Embassies to proudly do so.” A smaller Wiley piece pulled in nearly $845,000 at a 2024 auction.
Virginia Shore, who originally commissioned the work during her 2000–2017 stint leading Art in Embassies acquisitions, scoffed at the outrage. “Calling this woke is difficult for me to understand,” she told The New York Times.
“This is a program validated and financially backed under Bush. There is a science of building trust and empathy across borders.”
Wiley snagged a State Department award in 2015 for cultural diplomacy, having spent two years studying Dominican legends Celeste Woss y Gil and Gilberto Hernández Ortega before painting the piece alongside local art students.
The eviction is just the latest salvo in a scorched-earth campaign to reshape the embassy art program, an initiative dating back to the Kennedy administration.
Trump appointee Scavino—who co-runs the program and is married to Trump’s longtime aide Dan Scavino—bragged on Katie Miller’s podcast about how fast she scrubbed art from the ambassador’s residence in Bucharest, Romania, after MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna claimed she spotted “satanic baby art” during a trip.
“Within 15 minutes, I was on the phone with Marco’s team, not only having the art removed from Art in Embassies, having the art removed from the State Department, out of everything,” Elmore boasted, adding that the ambassador was “no longer with us.”
Reports indicated it was a standard retirement, not a cull. In July, Elmore flexed her vision by staging a D.C. exhibit showcasing nearly 70 versions of the American flag titled “Make Art Great Again.”
Defending the Wiley purge, Campos insisted in a formal statement: “It is my intention that everything we project from U.S. Embassy Santo Domingo, including the art and décor, reflect the beauty, strength and commitment to liberty of the United States of America and its people.”
Online, she dropped the diplomatic fluff. “Under the Trump administration and my leadership, we are leaving behind globalist, ‘woke’ ideologies to embrace, instead, American patriotism and the beauty of our great country,” she posted, signing off with a patriotic American flag emoji.
The State Department and Wiley have been contacted for comment.
