Federal taxpayers just spent $5.1 million gilding two 19-foot statues near the Lincoln Memorial with 23.75-karat gold leaf, transforming sculptures that once honored postwar reconstruction into what critics call monuments to presidential excess. The project, awarded without competitive bidding in April, stands as one of the most visible symbols of President Trump's redecoration of Washington.
The statues are called Valor and Sacrifice, part of The Arts of War. Sculptor Leo Friedlander created them, they were cast in Italy and dedicated in 1951 as a gift from the Italians for helping rebuild their country after World War II. Each statue shows a nude man and a seminude woman. Two other statues, collectively called The Arts of Peace, are nearby and still undergoing their golden glam-ups. The bronze statues were last regilded 55 years ago and had since faded.
No Competition, No Market Research
Federal officials awarded the work without seeking competitive bids. The National Park Service treated the project as a high priority, according to The New York Times, which cited internal documents describing it as "a visible, high-impact example of how the N.P.S. is responding to presidential directives." Documents obtained by NOTUS said extensive market research wasn't done to determine whether $5 million was a fair price, and the agency determined that only one company could meet the requirements of the work and the timeline: the Gilders' Studio in Maryland. The company didn't respond to a message. It's done regilding projects around the country, including the dome of the Georgia State House, the cupola of Faneuil Hall in Boston and the Sherman Monument in Central Park. A description of the project had a mandatory competition date of July 1.
As the scaffolding came down this month, marking one of the few completions of a Trump-ordered renovation project, Trump posted photos on social media and tourists, commuters, cyclists and runners stopped to take pictures. An ARTNews review called them "Fit for an oligarch's ballroom."
A Pattern of Presidential Opulence
President Trump has already splashed gold all around the White House, and the statues are among the most prominent symbols of Washington's new gilded age. Trump has worn his love of gold like a blinging billboard, pointing to Mar-a-Lago's ballroom inspired by Versailles, golden bathrooms, golden airplane-seatbelt buckles, a gold-infused penthouse suite, and the Oval Office, which now looks like a Middle Eastern bazaar crossed with an opulent Cracker Barrel. The Oval Office has thick gold frames, gold vases and ice buckets, gold stars on the ceiling and gold appliqués. Trump insists these are real gold, not painted flourishes from Home Depot.
Trump last year exempted gold bullion from his reciprocal tariffs and named his special visa program for wealthy foreigners the Trump Gold Card. He also took his personally designed presidential challenge coin, which is golden, and glued it to the center of the Oval Office door at about eye level. The coasters are gold, the curtains are gold, and guests know to come bearing gifts of gold.
When FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded Trump the first FIFA Peace Prize, it was a golden orb of a trophy. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook presented Trump with a 24-karat-gold base to hold a glass sculpture. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year gave him a golden pager to commemorate an operation in which members of Hezbollah were killed when their pagers detonated. Trump said during a Cabinet meeting 5 months ago, "See, I'm a gold person."
Decades of Golden Excess
Trump has loved gold and marble for decades. Ivana Trump, his first wife and the Trump Organization's vice president of interior design, encouraged his gold obsession, according to Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Ivana's love of the color lasted; she was buried in a gold casket. In the 1980s, Trump bought Mar-a-Lago and put $7 million worth of gold leaf on the walls, plus gold-plated sinks near the ballroom. He hired designer Henry Conversano, known for golden flourishes in the Golden Nugget casinos, to remodel his Trump Tower penthouse apartment and work at his Atlantic City casino. 38 years ago, he bought from the sultan of Brunei a yacht bathed in gold and named it the Trump Princess.
Jack O'Donnell, one of Trump's former casino executives who helped him host parties on the boat, said, "It was so gaudy. Almost shockingly gaudy. And he loved it. He thought it was the most beautiful thing out there." He speculated that Trump may have been inspired by the yacht when he remade the Lincoln Bathroom almost entirely in gold and marble. 18 years ago, Trump built a hotel in Las Vegas with a 406,000-square-foot facade coated in gold-infused glass. More recently, supporters erected a 22-foot statue of him at his golf course in Doral, Florida, with a gold finish.
Barbara Res, who oversaw construction for the Trump Organization and was placed in charge of building Trump Tower, said, "To him gold was the essence of richness and class." She added, "To him it meant, This is gold. This is mine. It's the best you can get, and I'm the best. That's how his mind works. I'm going to show you the best by buying the best." She said he also liked trompe l'oeil, "tricking the eye of the consumer," and that his taste reflected "his ability to spend endless money on something beautiful."
Trump has said, "I love the gold, but if you don't use 24 karat gold, it doesn't look good," "It just beams," and "It's all real stuff." He also said, "You can't imitate it. Someday they'll discover a paint that will look like gold, and the guy's going to be the richest man in the world." Peter York wrote in Politico Magazine in 2017 that Trump's design style is "aspirational, meant to project the wealth so many citizens can only dream of," and said, "The best aesthetic descriptor of Trump's look, I'd argue, is dictator style."
Gold has often been used to represent imperial power in 18th-century France and 19th-century Russia. On Trump's first foreign trip of his second term to the Middle East, he marveled at the gold and marble in the palaces of Doha and Abu Dhabi. He said 2 months ago ahead of a trip to the palace, "Versailles is not a gold leaf. Versailles is the real deal."
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement, "No other president has done more to beautify our Nation's interior than President Trump." He said Trump's "bold vision" was ensuring that the 250th birthday was filled with "glory and pride." The Department of Interior said, "Residents and visitors are excited to see the city revitalized to the grand destination it was meant to be."
Trump added the statues to the list of eyesores he wanted fixed before the nation's 250th birthday 1 month ago on July 4, and federal officials scrambled to meet his demands. The project was treated as a high priority by the National Park Service, and the scaffolding remained up for weeks before the statues came into view.
Why This Matters:
The $5.1 million no-bid contract for gold-leafing statues near the Lincoln Memorial raises fundamental questions about public spending priorities and oversight. While federal agencies cite presidential directives to justify bypassing competitive bidding and market research, taxpayers are left to wonder whether this represents sound stewardship of public resources. The statues, originally gifted as symbols of postwar cooperation and reconstruction, now stand transformed into monuments that critics say reflect personal aesthetic preferences rather than collective values. At a time when debates over infrastructure funding, social services, and public investment dominate national discourse, the decision to prioritize gilding over transparent procurement processes speaks to broader questions about whose vision shapes public spaces and who bears the cost. The contrast between these golden monuments and the austere dignity of the Lincoln Memorial they neighbor underscores competing visions of democratic leadership and public display.