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Obamas Unveil Official Paintings at National Portrait Gallery
Barack and Michelle Obama were on hand at the National Portrait Gallery Monday morning to unveil their official portraits. And, um, here they are:
No, this is not The Onion, but the actual portraits. Barack Obama, apparently being consumed by a hedge, was painted by Kehinde Wiley. Michelle Obama, in the style of a 10th grader in 1984, was painted by Amy Sherald.
What do you think of this … art?
Published in Culture
Even just scanning the page with my peripheral vision, this one sticks out like a redhead in Uganda.
Huh. You know, when I was looking at the artist’s other paintings . . . I missed one of his common themes.
Sheesh, can we just erase Obama’s presidency like the Egyptians did Akhenaten? Put those tasteless portraits in some dank basement somewhere where no one has to look at them?
Maybe they’re hedgerows. Watch out, there could be German tanks hidden there.
The Michelle one, as others have pointed out, doesn’t look at all like her. It’s like the Jennifer Anniston cover pictures in magazines when they were pretending she’s the most beautiful women in world by slapping 5”of makeup on her.
The paintings are terrible. Much like the Obamas were for America, so at least the quality of the work is fitting.
Here’s how it’s done, sports fans…
Well put.
And that extra finger on his left hand? Probably the one reserved for the American people.
Is this more what you had in mind?
The painting of Michelle Obama is magnificent. I don’t know if it looks much like Michelle Obama, but the thing is beautiful. The one of Barack Obama (perhaps unintentionally) catches something ridiculous about him. It has his number, so to speak.
I doubt these portraits are a good match with other White House portraits. I think they’re both good as works of art. The one of Michelle Obama is also beautiful.
The paintings are not good as BOTH works of art and the expected President and First Lady portraits.
As an artwork, I like the Michelle one too. As a portrait? It’s awful. Captures nothing about the woman. Unless that’s the way Mrs O sees herself. If you showed it to me and asked who it was I wouldn’t get Michelle Obama.
How to put this?
I find it completely appropriate that President Obama has an official portrait that is so inappropriate.
It is fundamentally lacking in gravity, and intentionally so, I infer. Drew said it very well:
Here is a link to all of the Presidential portraits (the Wikipedia entry includes only those through Carter). You can rapidly scroll through all of them. Since Eisenhower, they have generally not been very good (though LBJ and Carter are OK), but at least they are fundamentally serious.
The Obama official portrait is not yet at the site linked above, thank goodness.
What the heck! The Wikipedia link I put here yesterday had all of them, including Obama’s, and now it only goes through Carter. Someone took them out and added the following text: The official portraits for Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama were painted by artists who were not employed by the federal government at the time. These images are not in the public domain, and as such, are not included in this gallery.
Fascinating. Why now?
Personally, I like Truman’s, Ike’s, Jefferson’s, and Washington’s.
Hey @Valiuth, you hit some keen insights on the paintings. You also referenced three of my favorite painters, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals.
Politicians in general have some of the worst taste in art of any class of people. Portraits of them are generally worse than the average portrait because most politicians cannot tell the difference between a good artist and a bad one. I agree that the Reagan portrait is bland, even if it is well executed. I have been to the National Portrait Gallery and I’ve seen all the Presidential portraits first-hand. I was very disappointed. The only ones I liked were the first, the full-length figure of George Washington, and one of Nixon by Norman Rockwell, and I don’t think that one was even commissioned by him.
The Obamas seemed to have purposely picked “Black Artists” instead of simply choosing “Good Artists.” Can you imagine what would have happened if George Bush would have purposely sought out “White Artists? There are thousands of artists alive in the U.S. today that could have done a better job than these two. I personally know of several Black artists who would have done a far better job. I am a professional portrait painter myself.
stevensewardportraits.com
I assume because almost nobody bothered looking at the Wikipedia page about Presidential portraits until after the release of Obama’s silly portrait, and that someone who looked raised a copyright objection.
Seems like a copyright waiver would be a reasonable contract requirement for producing an “official” Presidential portrait.
Or are the artists allowed to sell reproductions, or numbered series?
The nice thing is, we can now be fairly certain that the Trump portrait will not be the tackiest Presidential portrait of all time.
It would be funny if, in a few weeks, the Obamas decided they loved the paintings so much they wanted to take them home, so they had to have replacements made (by different artists!).
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the second set of paintings would be even worse.
According to U.S. law, an artist retains copyright of his work even after he sells it to someone else. The buyer does not get copyrights unless the artist specifically assigns it to the buyer. The “fair use” doctrine allows for third parties to publish the work of art for purposes such as news and art criticism, but not for the purpose of making money directly from the art.
An artist can sell reproductions of his work after he sells it to someone else, as long as he has not given away the copyright. John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revival was not allowed to sing many of his own songs in concerts because he had sold away the copyrights to someone else.
I wasn’t questioning whether copyright allows the artist to sell copies, but whether by the very nature of the commission the artist (as opposed to the government, I suppose) can sell copies of an “official” portrait. It just seems “off” somehow.
I can’t answer that question, but you are right, it seems like it should be different.
This is too funny. Apparently Barry’s painter likes to sneak images of sperm into his paintings, and he pasted one upside Obama’s head in this one. Leave it to the classless to hire the classless.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/13/obamas-painter-has-long-predatory-peverse-history-of-sneaking-sperm-into-paintings/
This is similar to Diego Rivera painting John D. Rockefeller in his mural with syphilis germs floating above his head.
See this is the official portrait I always imagined they would have. At least they are clearly recognizable. That is a plus.
A thousand likes!
I like these two: