{"id":557234,"date":"2026-08-03T07:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557234\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T07:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:01:13","slug":"david-seymour-left-unsolicited-art-criticism-on-trade-me-auction-portrait-artist-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557234\/","title":{"rendered":"David Seymour left \u2018unsolicited art criticism\u2019 on Trade Me auction portrait, artist says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The portraits are listed for auction on Trade Me<\/a>, where 10% of profits are expected to be donated to Hospice New Zealand.<\/p>\n

\"ActAct leader David Seymour wrote “not quite me but nice art” across Auckland-based Jason Hoyt’s portrait when he was asked to sign it. Photo \/ Trade Me<\/p>\n

Taking to the r\/newzealand forum over the weekend, a Reddit<\/a> user purporting to be Hoyt said he had attempted to get each leader\u2019s signature on their respective portraits before they went to auction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI waited for about an hour at one of David Seymour\u2019s public meetings then showed him his portrait,\u201d Hoyt wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cA look of disgust came over his face almost immediately and he said, \u2018Why would you paint Ayn Rand in the background? I don\u2019t like Ayn Rand!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rand was a prominent Russian-born American intellectual whose promotion of individualism and free-market capitalism has made her an influential (albeit often controversial) figure among libertarians.<\/p>\n

\u201cI explained ChatGPT had incorrectly told me he was a fan of the Russian writer and philosopher and that I could change it easily enough if he wanted,\u201d Hoyt wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was still unhappy and said I\u2019d made him look too sad in the portrait also.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoyt said he had spent around 15 hours completing Seymour\u2019s piece, so the Act leader\u2019s reaction took him by surprise.<\/p>\n

\"ActAct leader David Seymour wrote “not quite me but nice art” across Auckland-based Jason Hoyt’s portrait when he was asked to sign it. Photo \/ Trade Me<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Look, I\u2019ll still sign it\u2019, but instead of just signing his name as requested, he wrote in thick black marker across the painting \u2018not quite me but nice art \u2013 D Seymour\u2019,\u201d Hoyt wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe must have felt a bit bad, as when I was walking out the door he called out, \u2018Great painting though … what did you use to make it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI was over the interaction, so just said \u2018paint and stuff\u2019 and walked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hoyt said he was \u201ca bit taken aback\u201d by Seymour\u2019s comments, he conceded he should have researched further before including the bust of Rand.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it might make the painting more interesting to have his unsolicited art criticism written across it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The portraits are listed for auction on Trade Me, where 10% of profits are expected to be donated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23503,1228,1628,1978,44999,5232,3054,6284,26477,101,14909,111,43,139,69,90,1523,9615,18154,20842,312,1963,16797,48613,584,270282,1316,2963],"class_list":["post-557234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-acts","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-auction","tag-commissioned","tag-create","tag-criticism","tag-david","tag-leaders","tag-left","tag-me","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-over","tag-piece","tag-political","tag-portrait","tag-says","tag-series","tag-seymour","tag-signing","tag-trade","tag-unsolicited","tag-when","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}