Trump Adds His Face to the US Passport
The new passport design is an audacious escalation of the president’s attempts to tag public resources with his name and likeness.
United States passports will display a portrait of a sitting president for the first time in the nation's history.
US State Department Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement to Hyperallergic that the agency would release a "limited number" of passports prominently depicting President Trump's face and signature in commemoration of the country's 250th anniversary later this year.
The move is an audacious escalation of the president's attempts to tag public resources with his name and likeness. Late last year, the White House added “Donald J. Trump” to the exterior of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Later, it announced that the president's signature would appear on US currency.
Renderings of the new passport show Trump's unsmiling face on the inside cover, superimposed on text from the Declaration of Independence.
The passport's portrait echoes Trump's stern-faced official photograph reportedly taken by Chief White House Photographer Daniel Torok.
"These passports will feature customized artwork and enhanced imagery while maintaining the same security features that make the U.S. Passport the most secure document in the world," Pigott said.
The document will only be available at the Washington Passport Agency, where it will be the default design, and any US citizen is eligible to obtain one, according to the State Department. The current US passport will continue to be issued at all other locations.
It is unclear when the State Department plans to begin issuing the updated design or exactly how many are available.
A presidential feature in the US passport booklet isn't entirely novel; however, the most recent chief executive appearing in the document served over 100 years ago. Current editions of the passport include a rendering of Mount Rushmore, in which the busts of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt are carved in stone.
In antiquity, rulers like Cleopatra printed their faces on currency as a way of distributing their official portraits to everyday people through a common object.
Spokespeople for the White House and State Department did not respond to Hyperallergic's request for information about the specific identities of the artists or designers who created the new passport layout.
In a statement to Hyperallergic about the new design, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said, "President Trump continues to proudly lead a renewal of national pride and patriotism during our historic semiquincentennial celebration.”
The action echoes the administration's frequent reference to the country's semiquincentennial in its efforts to overhaul content at the Smithsonian Institution and implement an unusual selection process for the US Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale.
