Barack Obama’s official portrait, the first presidential portrait by a black artist commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery, was unveiled Monday.

Michelle Obama’s portrait, also painted by a Kehinde Wiley and another national first, was revealed as well.

For his portrait, which will hang in the hall of presidents in the National Portrait Gallery, Obama chose Kehinde Wiley, a prominent Yale-trained painter known for large, colorful portraits of black people in the regal style of classic European paintings. (Former presidents always choose their artists.)

“His initial impulse was to elevate me,” Obama joked. “I had to explain that I’ve got enough political problems without you making me look like Napoleon. We’ve got to bring it down just a touch.”

Instead, Obama was placed in front of a simpler backdrop of greenery, which Wiley explained as “charting his path on Earth through those plants,” according to Washington Post reporter Dan Zak. In the painting, there is “a fight going on” between Obama and the plants, which, Wiley said, represent Obama’s story. The flowers featured grow in Illinois, Hawaii, and Kenya, he said.

“How about that?” Obama said after the portrait was unveiled. “That’s pretty sharp.”

The former president added a couple self-deprecating jokes: “I mean, there were a number of issues that we were trying to negotiate,” he said. “I tried to negotiate less grey hair. And Kehinde’s artistic integrity would not allow him to do that. I tried to negotiate smaller ears. Struck out on that as well.”

According to the New York Times, “Wiley’s art plays on different ways of seeing, and questions the representation of nonwhites (or lack thereof) in Western art.” According to the Guardian, Wiley finds most of his models on the street, although he has also painted celebrities such as Michael Jackson.
“What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our conventional views of power and privilege,” Obama said.

Michelle Obama chose a more obscure artist, Baltimore-based artist Amy Sherald, for her portrait. According to the New York Times, the National Portrait Gallery curators had not known Sherald when they started creating a list of artists for the Obamas. Sherald also paints portraits of black Americans, and according to the Times, her subjects “appear before solid fields of color reminiscent of Manet.”

When her portrait was revealed, Michelle Obama said she was “a little overwhelmed, to say the least.”

“Amy, I want to thank you for so spectacularly capturing the grace and beauty and intelligence and charm and hotness of the woman I love,” President Obama later said.

Sherald’s figures are often depicted on the grayscale, a method, she told the Baltimore Sun, that serves to “subversively comment about race without feeling as though I’m excluding the viewer.” According to the Times, the grey “signals their awareness of the obstacles to their full participation in American life.”
The Obamas often encouraged art by contemporary black artists during their time in the White House.

“I am in awe of Kahinde’s gifts, and what he and Amy have given to this country, and to the world,” Obama said. “And we are both very grateful to have been the subject of their attention.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga-nwXMh3B0&feature=youtu.be

More via http://mandynews.com/2018/02/12/nigerias-kehinde-wiley-paints-obamas-official-portrait-photos/

More via http://mandynews.com/2018/02/12/nigerias-kehinde-wiley-paints-obamas-official-portrait-photos/

A job well done !

Buhari's portrait will be drawn with blood.

As some people come to spoil this thread with the usual name calling, claiming and braggadacio, hope they remember that this is a gay man and was abandoned by his Nigerian father at a young age....
The artist is ver talented I must say!!!

His father is Nigerian. He did not grow up with his father or grow up in Nigeria. Stop claiming he’s a Nigerian abeg.

misplaced priority why he no paint our presido Burhari

Great piece of art...kehinde got skills

If he ever paints Bubu, he will get the insult of his life.

He is not nigerian

Lol

Of course he has to be Yoruba.


Most creative tribe in the world.

Mtcheww, iranu

God bless all Nigerians making us proud Regardless of tribe or religion. Amen.

Clap for ya sef

Nice work

Nigerians are better people.
I just don't know who our leaders are...
Probably from Uganda.
I'm sure Okorocha and Buhari are descendants of Idiami.

When will they paint Buhari going to daura?

Good one Afonja pikin.We dnt developed like those jew immigrants/ land grabbers from poto.

baby124:
His father is Nigerian. He did not grow up with his father or grow up in Nigeria. Stop claiming he’s a Nigerian abeg.

he inheritted his creativity from being a Yoruba / Nigerian

Good job

Just fact cheking the OP. Michele's potrait was not painted by Kehinde. It was by a female AA artist, Amy Sherald.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2018/2/12/17003956/obama-portraits-official-barack-michelle-kehinde-wiley-amy-sherald

IT SHALL NEVER BE WELL WITH THAT GAY CALLED OBUMA. FOR IMPOSING HIS FELLOW ISLAMIC JIHADIST ON NIGERIANS, HE SHALL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.

baby124:
His father is Nigerian. He did not grow up with his father or grow up in Nigeria. Stop claiming he’s a Nigerian abeg.

You are contradicting yourself all in a bid to make sense.

You too re-read what you just typed Mungo park

Seun this your moderator quick resume work oh


You sure say e bath come work soooo

Nice painting

Honestly, Barack's portrait it's not done to me but Mitchell's portrait is beautiful and classy.

Good work there brother.

ettybaba:
Buhari's portrait will be drawn with blood.

You are too Mean.

good art work!

This is a horrible painting for a museum





Yikes