Donald Trump in picture, but lunch date brushed for artist Charles Billich

Covid-19 has robbed Sydney artist Charles Billich of the chance to lunch with Donald Trump – and hand over an unconventional portrait.

Charles Billich in front of the portrait he was looking forward to presenting to Donald Trump. Picture: Jane Dempster

All was set for internationally renowned Sydney artist Charles Billich to unveil his latest project, a characteristically unconventional portrait of Donald Trump, in the presence of the great man himself.

He had flown to the US with his socialite wife, Christa, attended the ex-president’s glittering new year’s bash at Mar-a-Lago and accepted an invitation to lunch with him.

Then came the surreal kicker: instead of breaking bread with Mr Trump and Melania on Sunday, Billich was sweating it out in a hotel room with Covid-19.

“We can’t believe it,” said Christa, so far negative. “We are both double-vaxxed and had the booster. We thought that would protect us, but it seems not.”

In other circumstances, they might have shared the kind of wry appreciation that Billich’s sought-after surrealist work can evoke given their long, winding path to Trump HQ in Florida.

But, really, this was no laughing matter. Charles is 87 and has a heart condition while Christa, 76, is battling leukaemia. They have been told to isolate for five days and call for medical help if required.

“It is not ideal. He is sleeping a lot which is good for him,” she said of her ill husband. “But we get constant reports that this Omicron virus is much milder, so we should be fine. We hope for the best.”

The bold 1m x 1m painting that accompanied them on the flight from Sydney is also stranded in the hotel after they missed a planned opportunity to present it to Mr Trump last Friday.

Billich, an unabashed fan of the former president, started work on the piece as Mr Trump’s tumultuous time in the White House wound down. It imagines his visage as the fifth on the Mt Rushmore monument, alongside those of presidential titans George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Charles Billich at Donald Trump's new year’s eve party at Mar-a-Lago.

A stretch, given Mr Trump’s chequered record?

“No, not at all,” Billich said, while previewing the painting to The Australian ahead of their departure. “Trump was a great president. He stood for liberal values, for democracy. He gave us all liberty.”

In a nod to that other defining feature of America’s wealthy 45th president – his volcanic temperament – the mountain is erupting in Trumpian gold. Not gold paint or imitation gold leaf, mind you. Billich used 24-carat gold, applied direct to the canvas.

Asked how, the artist laughed: “I’m not opening a painting school, you know.”

A friend had a contact in Mr Trump’s inner circle, who conveyed Billich’s desire to gift him the painting. An invitation to the new year’s eve festivities duly arrived. Mr Trump swung by their table but the security around him was so tight Billich was unable to hand over the canvas: lunch at the beach house, then?

Unfortunately, he woke up next morning feeling sick. As a precaution – they were triple-vaxxed after all – Christa broke out a rapid antigen test and was horrified when Charles came up positive to Covid.

“He’s not too bad,” she said, when we called in the evening. “He had a glass of wine with lunch and half a burger … which is another good sign.”

Referring to him by his surname – “it’s our thing,” she explained – Christa went on: “Billich is much more disappointed than I am. He was looking forward to presenting the painting to Trump … he admires him greatly.”

Which is saying something given his past subjects figure among the world’s rich and famous, including Pope John Paul II. One of his works, a cityscape of Washington, adorns the Green Room of the White House and others hang in the halls of the United Nations centre in New York and palaces across Europe. Famously, his painting of Beijing was used to brand China’s successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Christa said they were hopeful he would make a swift enough recovery to participate, in some way, in a presentation of the painting to Mr Trump. “If Billich’s condition improves before the third (of January) and I don’t get the virus then maybe we can still do it,” she said.

“Trump is staying here, we are not going anywhere, and his people have told us some kind of thing can still happen.

“We don’t just want to send the painting to him. That would be a shame when we have come all this way. And, you know, they seem a lot more relaxed about Covid here than at home.”