Barack and Michelle Obama selected the artists who will paint their portraits for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the museum announced Friday.
“The Portrait Gallery is absolutely delighted that Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald have agreed to create the official portraits of our former President and First Lady,” said Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery.
“Both have achieved enormous success as artists, but even more, they make art that reflects the power and potential of portraiture in the 21st century.”
After each tenure, the museum partners with the White House to commission one official portrait of the President and one of his spouse.
His rich, highly saturated colour palette and his use of decorative patterns complement his realistic, yet expressive, likenesses.
Wiley’s works include the painting of American entertainers, Michael Jackson, LL Cool J and Notorious B.I.G., Ice T, Grandmaster Flash, Furious Five amongst others.
Wiley first showed interest in painting Obama in 2008 when he said: “I’d love, love, love to do his official presidential portrait. I’m actively campaigning.”
Sherald is best known for her life-size paintings of African Americans.
This will mark the first time that black artists were hired by the Smithsonian to create a portrait of a former president since they started commissioning portraits in 1994, though the White House did commission a black Alabaman artist, Simmie Knox, to paint the Clintons in 2000.
The Obamas’ portraits will be revealed in early 2018.
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