Trump’s plan for a giant sculpture garden in DC hits a brick wall

President Donald Trump wanted to create a sculpture garden for the 250th birthday of the United States, but according to CNN, no artists have been contacted to build any.

According to the report, there is fear that there won't be enough time for the artists to create any of the work for Trump's National Garden of American Heroes.

“It has not been formally reviewed,” said a person familiar with planning efforts in an interview with CNN. “Based on my experience in prior approvals in the District, I don’t see how this could be in place in time by July.”

There are just over two and a half months left for artists to sculpt the statues if the deadline is July 4. Some artists said was a very short timeline, unless Trump intends to do so in easier materials than stone. Plenty of artists were eager to participate, but none had heard back from the White House confirming the statues.

"The statues are intended to be classical, lifelike, and should be created from marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass and 1.2 times the historical height of the individual, amounting to statues between 6 feet and 8 feet tall," the report explained.

It could make it impossible for the sculptors to achieve the goal by the deadline.

CNN reported that there has been a little progress. According to those familiar with the plans, the 250 statues would be placed along the Potomac River, where construction is underway to shore up the retaining wall as sea levels rise. While construction for the river has been finalized, the landscaping is still being placed and is scheduled to be finished by the end of May, the National Parks Service said in December.

D.C.-based architect Michael Franch has taken over the project, so it's entirely possible that the White House could officially announce the location. The larger problem, CNN said, is that "sources say even that could change."

The idea hasn't been one that folks see as all that interesting, a report in 2025 by CNN said.

“No one wants an outdoor Madame Tussauds museum, and it appears that the administration is taking the right steps to make sure that we get beautiful, inspiring works of art,” shunned Justin Shubow, the president of the National Civic Art Society, when speaking to CNN last year.

There is also a fear that the project could be "rubber-stamped" by the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) and the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). Upon entering office, Trump fired everyone on the boards and replaced them with his loyalists. The result has been blanket approval for everything, including bulldozing the East Wing of the White House and changing the color of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

These projects generally require approval from Congress to be funded. A person familiar said that they were fearful that the 250 sculptures “will be rammed through without approval” by Congress or the commissions, “as in the case of the White House ballroom.”

Trump wants the statues to be "the giants of our past” in a “vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.”

To pay for it, Trump has taken money from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, CNN said.

Documents show that the NEH and NEA put aside $34 million for Trump's statue garden, with the NEA planning to contribute $17 million. Trump's "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" gave the project $40 million to build and maintain the garden.

"The NEH started soliciting artists in April of 2025 to apply to make the sculptures and artists were supposed to be informed if they were chosen in September 2025," said CNN. "According to the timeline laid out by NEH, those chosen were to have completed their sculptures by June 2026."

That leaves a little over a month.

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