William Quigley’s studio loft stood seven blocks from Ground Zero in Tribeca on September 11, 2001, an experience that intensified his engagement with cultural and philanthropic initiatives. In the years that followed, Quigley produced a rare continuum of presidential portraits, including George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. In 2006, at the request of his mother, he executed an eight-foot portrait of Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump, a decade before Trump’s presidency, capturing the subject as a public figure defined by commerce and media rather than political office. The painting occupies a distinctive place between traditional state-commissioned portraiture and contemporary celebrity culture, anticipating the political prominence its subject would later achieve. Acquired by Trump in 2013 in connection with a charitable event entitled 'The Pleasurists', supporting Veterans, and Guild Hall of East Hampton the work now resides in his Mar-a-Lago collection.
Published in a limited edition of 45 in three sizes and created with artist Ben Moon as the invitation to the 2013 exhibition, each impression is hand-signed and numbered on archival canvas or paper, offering collectors a rare opportunity to acquire a document of pre-presidential portraiture and a pivotal moment in twenty-first-century American cultural history. Read the linen drawing Quigley wrote in 2016 prior to the election in photo #4.
