Gordon Veneklasen’s Macdougal Alley townhouse, with its quiet downtown refinement, is just about the opposite of Trump Tower, but the president-elect was much on the minds of artists at the art dealer’s Christmas party there on 13 December. And if there has been one upside to Trump’s election, it’s that Peter Saul, known for his cartoon-influenced paintings rife with sex and violence, has finally decided to start on a Donald Trump painting. “He’s kind of a growth in this office,” Saul said at the party. “He probably has three heads. He gets punched by money, scalped by Native Americans. He gets sawed by a tree that has come alive. I want a lot of things to happen to him, so he’s gotta have three heads.” The artist plans to begin sketches this month.
