THE OBAMA PORTRAITS TOUR AT LACMA

The Obama Portrait Tour continues and will be on view at LACMA`s Resnick Pavilion

from 7 November 2021 to 2 January 2022.

26. August 2021

Kehinde Wiley, Barack Obama, 2018,

oil on canvas,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution © 2018 Kehinde Wiley. The National Portrait Gallery is grateful to the generous donors who made these commissions of the Obama Portraits possible and proudly recognizes them at npg.si.edu/obamaportraitstour. Support for the national tour has been generously provided by Bank of America.

Amy Sherald, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018,

oil on linen,

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution © National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

The National Portrait Gallery is grateful to the generous donors who made these commissions of the Obama Portraits possible and proudly recognizes them at npg.si.edu/obamaportraitstour. Support for the national tour has been generously provided by Bank of America.

THE OBAMA PORTRAITS TOUR AT LACMA

The Obama Portrait Tour continues and will be on view at LACMA`s Resnick Pavilion from 7 November 2021 to 2 January 2022.

The West Coast presentation of the tour will feature Kehinde Wiley`s Barack Obama and Amy Sherald`s Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, on loan from the Smithsonian`s National Portrait Gallery. To round out the exhibition, LACMA will exhibit a series of 150 portraits under the theme "Black American Portraits". 

The official portraits of President Obama and his First Lady Michelle Obama respect the tradition of presidential portraits while breaking with it. 

THE PRESIDENT

Kehinde Wiley places the President against a vivid background that symbolises the President's personal history. Wiley painted his portrait after a series of photographs he was allowed to take of the President. His green almost seems alive, as in many of his paintings. The artist knew that Barack Obama is very sensitive to how he is portrayed in history and he wanted to make sure that his painting accurately conveyed who the President is in the world. Wiley wanted to show a relaxed president, which is evident in the details such as the open collar and the lack of a tie.

The flowers in the painting have a very special meaning. Jasmine refers to Obama's birthplace, Hawaii. The African blue lilies represent Kenya, the birthplace of Obama's father, and chrysanthemums are the official flower of Chicago, the city where his political career began and where he also met Michelle Obama.

Wiley was also able to draw parallels with his family to his own father, who was also one of the first students to come to the USA from Kenya.

The President himself liked his portrait very much and commented humorously that he was very happy not to be portrayed like Napoleon.

An interview with Kehinde Wiley can be read in the New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/kehinde-wiley-on-painting-president-obama-michael-jackson-and-the-people-of-ferguson

THE FIRST LADY

Amy Sherald's portrait shows the First Lady in a confident, relaxed pose in a typically grandiose elegant dress. There has been much debate about this portrait's lack of brown skin colour. However, the First Lady wanted posterity - especially young black girls, as she said in a speech - to see her as a heroine of success. Through this, Sherald challenged assumptions about blackness and representation in portraits. 

The dress is by one of the First Lady's favourite designers, Michelle Smith, and the clean geometric style was meant to make the First Lady look forward-thinking.

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery holds the complete collection of portraits of U.S. presidents. The Gallery purchased its first Presidential portrait of George H.W. Bush in 1994. In 2006, they purchased their first First Lady Portrait with Hillary Rodham Clinton. A book on "The Obama Portraits" was published in 2020 by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery together with Princeton University Press. It can be purchased in the LACMA shop.

www.lacmastore.org

BLACK AMERICAN PORTRAITS

This exhibition runs parallel to the Obama Portraits and spans 2 centuries beginning with a black sailor in a late 18th century portrait, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Era and the Black Power Movement. Most of the 150 artworks come from the museum's own collection and feature family, memories, myths, legends and futurism.

On 6 November, Amy Sherald, Kehinde Wiley and Steven Spielberg will also be honoured at the 2021 Art & Film Gala.

ABOUT THE LACMA

The Museum has hosted many major exhibitions featuring Black artists over the past decade. The first exhibition was "Three Graphic Artists: Charles White, David Hammond, Timothy Washington" in 1971. LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States with a collection consisting of more than 142,000 objects that showcases 6000 years of artistic expression around the globe.

WHERE

5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036 

www.lacma.org