Trump reportedly claims he owns an original Renoir. He does not.
Two Sisters (On the Terrace) is an 1881 painting by impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir which is presently housed in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Therefore, it is not housed in President Trump's New York City penthouse.
That's relevant because Trump reportedly insists he owns the original work, as Vanity Fair recounts in a piece published Friday night:
On the return flight, O'Brien said, Trump mentioned the painting "as if the conversation had never happened" and again announced it to be an original. Then, shortly after the 2016 election, Trump gave a 60 Minutes interview in his New York home. In the background, visible behind Trump and Mike Pence, then vice president-elect, was the faux Renoir.
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Trump's long-term commitment to his claim that the painting is authentic is emblematic of the president's relationship to the truth, O'Brien told Vanity Fair. Trump "believes his own lies in a way that lasts for decades," O'Brien argued, and he'll "tell the same stories time and time again, regardless of whether or not facts are right in front of his face."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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