The point of art, arguably, is to make us ask questions, including such open-ended queries as: What the hell is that? Indeed, that’s a question one might ask while staring at the latest artwork posted by President Donald Trump to his social media platform Truth Social.
Late on Sunday night, he posted an image of an artwork—apparently a framed painting—that sets out to provide a full picture of American history. Represented here are George Washington, American soldiers planting their nation’s flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, an astronaut on the moon, and Trump himself, as well as such quintessentially American icons as the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore.
So far, so simple. But what, exactly, is that robot doing watching fireworks next to a little boy and a man in antiquated garb? Is that rocket ship at the far right blasting off toward Mars? And who is that woman sewing a flag by candlelight? One hopes she isn’t Betsy Ross, whose claim to fame as the inventor of the American flag has been largely debunked by historians.
As for the work itself: Who made it, and where is it being shown? Trump did not identify its maker or its exhibiting venue, writing only, “Great painting!! President DJT.”
Thank goodness, I guess, for AI, then. Google’s AI search function tells me that this work is, in fact, not AI slop, even though it looks that way. (Or at least not entirely, but more on that in a bit.)
Through Google, I was able to discover that this painting is, in fact, a print by the artist Ray Simon, whose website identifies him as “the artist who painted America.” His bio then goes on to contradict that statement by concluding: “Raymond A. Simon is more than an artist; he is a conduit for the stories of America’s spirit.” (For the most part, those stories apparently do not relate to people of color, who are present in only a few works I viewed on Simon’s website, including a print celebrating Abraham Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator,” with formerly enslaved Black children at his side.)
Simon, who is based in Youngstown, Ohio, seems to have ties to Trump. According to Simon’s website, the artist’s portrait of Trump has appeared at the President’s home in Mar-a-Lago. “President Trump was so taken with the piece he called it the best painting he had ever seen of himself,” Simon claims. (ARTnews was not able to immediately verify this.) That work, titled The Awakening, is available for purchase on the artist’s site for $4,547.
A painting posted by Donald Trump.
Via Truth Social
In between prints of Charlie Kirk, bald eagles, Jesus Christ, and veterans of the Marines and the Navy, one can find the work that Trump posted, which is called Forged in Freedom. Simon bills it as his tribute to the nation’s history on the eve of the Semiquincentennial, and he is appropriately selling 250 prints of it for $250 a pop.
Simon’s description provides some explanation for this bizarre work—and even offers some insight into the robot figure. “At the emotional heart of the painting,” Simon writes, “a colonial figure sits with his arm around a young boy beside a humanoid Optimus robot, forming a bridge between America’s founding heritage and the possibilities of tomorrow.” Optimus robots are produced by Tesla, whose founder, Elon Musk, has at various points been lauded and denounced by Trump.
Through Simon’s description, one can also learn that Martin Luther King, Jr., is on hand, walking with Abraham Lincoln toward a church, and that there is a Bible on the table where the Declaration of Independence is being signed in this print, “symbolizing one nation under God.” (Bibles do not appear in historical paintings of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and though the document does reference God, it does not contain quotations from or allusions to scripture.)
Certainly, Simon’s work looks a bit like other AI-generated images that Trump has posted, but the artist’s site contains no references to AI that I could find. However, the artist’s latest TikTok, from 2025, is a video that animates the aforementioned Lincoln print. The video was posted with a caption reading: “History Meets AI Magic!”
